


When Paths Collide

by Yidenia



Series: Fairy Moon [2]
Category: Cardcaptor Sakura, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Humor, Explicit Language, Gen, Rape Aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-23 11:32:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 63,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9655304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yidenia/pseuds/Yidenia
Summary: Sequel to Blood and Duty.Tsubasa was brutally assaulted before Kurogane, Fay, and Mokona were able to bring him to Tomoeda, where a very harassed Kinomoto Touya, an overworked general surgeon, has to figure out how to keep him alive without jeopardizing the space-time continuum.





	1. In Which Touya Hates Life in General

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Touya is kind of a jerk. With a heart of gold, but still a total jerk.
> 
> Please review!

As a general surgeon, Touya worked long hours. Simple things like appendectomies could turn into four-hour-long disasters—the stars were not aligned properly, or the nurses did not go through the right rituals, he was not wearing the right underwear—either way something would turn simple procedures into complicated nightmares, so he learned to really value the times he did get off. So he was just a little bit pissed when ten minutes after he left work, he gets a call from one of his colleagues telling him he had to go in.

_"Some foreigners just carried in this kid, I think he's your brother-in-law."_

"Who, Syaoran?" Touya scowled. "What the fuck is he doing here? He's in America for his MBA."

_"Well he's really beaten up but it sure looks a lot like him."_

_Kuso._

He went back to the emergency department where all the residents were gathered at resus, and his colleague, Miyamoto, was demanding whether or not the OR was ready. Anesthesia was at the head of the bed and had just finished intubating. There was a pack of blood running alongside a liter of normal saline. The patient was naked, of course, and covered with burn marks, bruises, and blood. Touya could only see the pelvic area, which looked shredded.

"Urology on board?" he asked Miyamoto, resisting the urge to go to the bathroom.

"Fuck urology," said Miyamoto, unaware of the irony. "He's practically disemboweled. This one's a goner for sure, especially since the fucking OR is still not clean yet. Is neurosurgery paged yet? Get him to CT if we're going to wait, _kami-sama._ "

Touya maintained his calm; he was fairly certain the brat was still safely in Philadelphia, but one look at the patient's face—bruised, jaw dislocated, blood matted all over his hair, and that _sense_ , shadows and imprints of what had happened, rough hands and cruel laughter, blows to the head, nails on the hips, red hot pain shooting up the core, screams caught by tight pressure on the windpipe—he felt his stomach plummet and had to stop before he was close enough to get the full vision.

" _Kuso!_ "

"He's not your brother," Miyamoto apologized, "I didn't get a chance to text you because of everything that's been going on, but he's like sixteen and way too small. But he sure gave me a heart attack."

"Fuck. Me." It sure looked like him. In fact, Touya was having flashbacks of this exact same scenario.

"He's not  _Li-san_ , don't worry. Well he is. he's also called Li Syaoran. That a common Chinese name? But those guys over there," and Miyamoto pointed to a tall, black-haired man with giant biceps, alongside a slender, fair-haired man with blue eyes. "He's apparently theirs, isn't from around here, has never been to Tomoeda."

The slender, fair-haired man has magic.  _Oh, and his friend has a giant sword._

"Fuck. Me." Touya said again.

* * *

The kicker, other than the fact that Li Syaoran's doppelgänger was also named Li Syaoran, was that those two companions seemed to recognize Touya, though they did a piss-poor job of pretending otherwise. Syaoran 2.0 got whisked off to CT, where his head showed a nice epidural hemorrhage, so neurosurgery and Miyamoto went with the patient to the OR to figure out how to coordinate their respective management. Touya was tempted to just let them have at this one; this was not  _his_ Li Syaoran, after all, and he also was struck with the urge to call Philadelphia even though it was…actually not an unholy hour of the day; 8:30am over there. But there was a magician, and there was a doppelgänger in the shape of his brother-in-law, and Kaho was always annoying him about how everything happened for a reason (though mainly when he was depressed about potentially losing Sakura to the barbarian lands of the Americas).

"I am Dr. Kinomoto," said Touya, shaking their hands: first the tall black-haired one, who looked at his offered hand like it were covered with germs (not untrue), and then the fair-haired one, who was much less awkward. "What's your relationship to the patient?"

"Friend," said the fair-haired one. "I'm Fay. This is _Kuro-pu_."

"For real?" Kuropu exclaimed.

Touya had no idea what that was about, and did not really care. "Why don't you two come with me. Let's go somewhere private."

Privacy was a bit of an illusion, but there was a family meeting room specifically used for sensitive conversations. Touya led the two in there and gestured to them to have a seat. Neither one did.

"You're a sorcerer," Touya cut straight to the chase; ever since his residency in general surgery, getting to the point became one of his greatest talents, "and I have no clue what you are. That kid back there looked like the teenage version of my brother-in-law who is both no longer a teenager, and I know for sure is on the opposite side of this world. So, what's going on? Who are you, and how did that boy get beat up so badly?"

The two strangers exchanged a look. "We're from another world," said Fay. "We're…dimension travelers."

"I'm Mokona!" A high-pitched voice exclaimed from Fay's shoulder, and a white rabbit-like creature emerged.

" _Kami-sama_ ," Touya exclaimed, "I am  _so glad_ tomorrow's my day off."

"We were attacked, in another world," Kuropu explained. He looked like the sort of fellow who was normally very composed, but as he spoke, his voice wavered and his eyes flickered with pain. "Or rather, the kid was attacked. We had separated. They…they tortured him for hours before we were able to find him. We escaped into this world."

"Is he going to be alright?" Fay asked.

"I don't know. I'm not actually the doctor on the case," said Touya. From the looks of it, it looked hopeless, but he did not want to be the one to take Miyamoto's job from him. "Miyamoto's one of the best, and the neurosurgeons are good at what they do. The rest is up to fate and fortune."

Fay became solemn. "Please, you have to help him. He's…he's gone through a lot. He's a good boy. He doesn't deserved to…to end like this."

Touya pinched his forehead and regretted, very hard, his decision to open up this can of worms. "We'll do our best. But you just came into this world to escape the last one? Any chance whoever did this to him might follow?"

"No," said both men simultaneously.

"May I ask," Fay went on, "what is going to happen now? What's going on?"

"As I said, I'm not actually the doctor—"

Kuropu grabbed his arm. The motion was so fast, Touya's mind spun for a bit. "We saw you talking. He told you what was going on."

"Kurogane!" Fay exclaimed, and grabbed his partner's arm in turn. "That's not how we do this!" He turned to Touya. "Please. You are a sorcerer too; that's clearly not common here. From one sorcerer to another, please, tell us what you know."

Touya threw off Kuropu—or whatever his name was. That grip would bruise later, he knew.

"I don't really know. We didn't talk about his condition in great detail. There's obviously been…damage," he swallowed. He did not understand how urologists could look at and mutilate penises all day. Case in point: he was not a urologist. "He's bleeding into his brain and it sounds like his intestines might be perforated. Patients have died from injuries like this."

The two foreigners looked aghast. The fluffball, or whatever it was, started to whimper. Kuro-what's-it chose this moment to sink into one of the chairs.

 _Kuso_ , though Touya.  _Where's a nurse when you need one._ They were much better at this sort of comfort thing.

"He's more than just a friend, you know," Fay amended quietly. "He's family. He's suffered so much as it was."

"Who assaulted him, and why?"

"We don't know," said Fay's partner. "And the boy could handle himself, usually. They ambushed him. Seemed like they were just looking for victims and chose him. By the time we got to him, he was like this, so he couldn't tell us what happened."

"Syaoran has to get better," the bunny exclaimed, "he's strong, and he's determined. He'll pull through."

Touya sighed mentally.  _What did I just get myself into._ He should have walked away as soon as he knew for certain this was not  _his_ Syaoran.

But that was the thing. This was  _a_ Syaoran. And while a brother-in-law was not quite the same as a real brother, over the years it got pretty close. There had been some moments, here and there. They had not gotten off on the right foot, and for the longest time he did not like the kid, but he did get along with Yue, who had adored the boy, and for the first year in Tomoeda, Touya tolerated the child for his sake. Later, after Sakura became Card Mistress, Touya learned more about the boy, and the boy also grew more comfortable with everyone, and soon became one of Touya's favorite people. Syaoran had a dry cutting wit that was excellent to have on one's own side and fun to banter with when it was all in good fun. He had hung out with the kid whenever Yue had to run an errand, had confided in him during medical school, and along the way, Syaoran became one of Touya's best friends. To see that boy violated, hurt…

"You said he looked like your brother-in-law?" Fay inquired.

" _Hai._ "

"He wouldn't happen to also be named Syaoran, would he?"

"Li Syaoran," Touya nodded. "He's older, though. Going to business school in University of Pennsylvania. Not that…that probably means anything to you. Smart kid. Strong too. Had a rough start. Family was killed by…maniacs; he was the sole survivor. Was on the run for a while, before he met with…a guardian. Guardian took care of him, all the way till now." He looked at Fay. "What about yours?"

"Hm. Not sure about his early childhood," said Fay, "but he ran into some bad circumstances. Evil sorcerer, captured him, imprisoned him for years in order to produce a clone that would help accomplish some…evil deeds. We actually met his clone first; he had taken out his eye to try to give the clone a soul and enough will to defy his creator, but things didn't really work out at first. He was trying to save his love: Sakura. Managed it, but lost his parents along the way. We're currently trying to bring them back."

 _Sakura._ "There's another version of Sakura out there?"

"There's at least two," said Kuro…whatever. "An original and a clone."

Touya frowned. "You have a lot of clones where you come from."

"Dimension travelers," Fay reminded him.

"There's a chance he'd be alright though?" The fluffball asked. "I mean, people have died, but people have also survived, right?"

Touya did not want to raise their hopes too high. "It's touch and go. Maybe he'd pull through. Our Syaoran might. Had, before, with the…story for another time. Maybe. But the brain bleed is bad business. They'd need to decompress it, stat, and people don't tend to really be themselves even with a speedy management… _Gomen nasai._ "

* * *

Touya went home, because this was not his Syaoran and he really wanted to call him. He got Yue instead, because the brat left his phone at home.

 _"I'm pretty sure I would have felt it if something did happen to him,"_ Yue said, perplexed.  _"He's in class right now. Are you alright? Did you tell Sakura about this?"_

Sakura was quite freaked out by this development.  _"There's another version of Syaoran-kun? From another dimension? And dimension travelers with magic? Are you alright, Oni-chan?"_

Touya then went to sleep, determined to spend his one day off away from the hospital. As a surgeon, he loved the OR, loved being in the OR, it just gave him a nice warm feeling inside, coupled with the comfy scrubs, the ability to strut down the halls that required the cap and shoe-covers, the lounge where they could talk shit about the idiot emergency doctors and their stupid consults, but when it was his day off, he did  _not_ want to be back at the hospital.

Six hours later, he texted Miyamoto.

- _Did not die on table. Found 45cm metal rod shoved up rectum. Almost vomited into sterile field. Good thing didn't get MRI-_

"Fuck," was all Touya could say to that. - _Kuso. Kid's a goner for sure.-_

_-Still have to try in SICU. Hope police gets those bastards.-_

"Heh," Touya rubbed his face, because fat chance of _that_ , with dimension travelers in the mix. He then called the US again. This time, Syaoran picked up.

 _"Oni-san,"_ said the young man,  _"you doing alright? Those extra-dimensional sorcerers aren't giving you trouble are they?"_

" _Iie_ , just wanted to make sure you're alright. Your double is…not doing so well."

Syaoran, being blissfully unaware of just how bad things looked, and being fortunately very aware of how well he currently was himself, seemed very at ease, if sympathetic.  _"Sumimasen, Oni-san. Though if it makes it better, I'm currently getting dressed for a party tonight—to the nines, mind you, with tuxedos, me and my friends, while you're getting blood and shit all over yourself."_

" _Gaki_ ," Touya was tempted to slam the phone down. "It's my day off."

_"Oh. Well, you probably still look like trash."_

"Of course I look like trash. But guess who you'll be seeing if you get smashed at your fancy party."

Syaoran laughed.

"Seriously though, if you end up in the emergency room later I'm going to kill you."

_"Aw, I knew you cared, Oni-san! Don't worry, even if I weren't deathly afraid of you, Yue would rip me a new one. I'll behave myself. A little bit."_

"Stay safe," Touya had to say anyway.

* * *

 Determined not to allow this to ruin his day off, Touya went to his sister to remind himself what normal life looked like.

But Sakura wasn't on the same wavelength, and wanted to visit this new Syaoran.

"I just want to see if he's alright," she pleaded, her green eyes wide and beseeching. " _Onegai?_ "

"I hate you so much," Touya told her seriously. "You have five minutes. I'm not spending more than five minutes in that dump on my one day off."

Syaoran 2.0 was hooked to the ventilator and sedated. They had done an open surgery so his stomach was patched and stapled. His head was also shaved and wrapped with bandages. Overall, he looked like he was doomed to code and get wheeled down with a sheet over his face, and it hurt for even Touya to look at, and he had seen his share of graphic injuries.

" _Kami-sama_ ," Sakura breathed, "he really does look exactly like him."

Mokona jumped to Sakura as soon as it saw her, leading to some confusion and a little bit of jealousy on the part of Kero. Fay and Kurogane asked Touya what to expect now.

"Well," Touya explained, feeling harassed, because he had gotten six hours of sleep after being up for forty hours, and why did no one else talk to these two about this? "Now we see if we can wean him off the ventilator and the sedation, and then we see if he has any neurologic sequelae. And if he can have any more bowel movements." Then his mouth ran ahead of his brain. "By the way, did they ever fix his penis?"

"…What was wrong with his penis?" Sakura asked.

" _Kuso_ ," Touya stared at her. He forgot he had not wanted her to know. "Fuck my life."

"What happened?!"

"It's man stuff."

"He's my husband!"

"This one's not your husband. He's a kid from another dimension with his own Sakura and everything. Your husband is currently in his majority, going to a business party, dressed in a tuxedo and being smug about how he looks handsomer than me right now, _and_ his penis is in good shape. I think. I have never seen his penis, nor do I want to."

"Well you sort of have, now," Kero said helpfully.

"Ugh!" Touya exclaimed, realizing the guardian was right. "I am so done with this week!"

There was a knock on the door. Everyone turned around.

" _Ohayo,_ " said the young man, "I'm from urology; the team consulted us."

Touya turned to Sakura. "We are  _not_ staying here for this."

* * *

 

"I refuse to get emotionally invested," Touya informed his sister as they stood outside in the hall. "I already got emotionally invested in one. Two is too much."

"But we have to help them somehow," said Sakura, "I know I'd appreciate any help I can get if I were stuck in another reality and I were hurt."

"Well, we are already helping him," said Touya. "He's in a hospital, getting care despite not paying taxes or owning a passport. They drained his brain and they sutured his bowels and they're currently patching up his…parts. It's not like there's much else we can do."

"We can use magic," she pointed out.

"Fine. You use your cards to fix his brain and keep him alive."

"Well how am I supposed to do that?" Sakura exclaimed. "I don't even know where to start."

Touya grabbed his hair. "You are all expecting too much. I hate all of you."

"You know what happened to him, don't you?" Kero asked.

One of Touya's gifts, which Sakura did not share, was the ability to tell the history of an object or a person by being in close enough proximity. It was related to his ability to see ghosts and to sense when danger threatened him or his loved ones—one reason Touya had not been overly concerned until he had seen the patient for himself. The real Syaoran, or at least his Syaoran, also had enough magic to rival the most powerful sorcerers in the world, which did a lot to reassure him on that front. This Syaoran, on the other hand, was nowhere near as powerful, was younger, and while Touya did not get close enough to really get the full picture, he knew what had been done to this boy had been savage, unspeakably violent, and even if the boy woke up, he would not be the same. Touya did not want— _did not want—_ to be the least bit tangled up with this particular mess.

"This is my fucking day off. Can't I not doctor for at least one day this week?"

The urology resident suddenly came out. "Guys, I need help over here! Blood pressure's tanking!"

" _Kuso!_ " Touya growled, as all the nurses surged over in a wave. He waved at his sister. "Stay right here."

Because sometimes the world hates Touya just as hard as Touya hated the rest of the world, the urology resident was not just a bad doctor and the blood pressure really was low, tanking down towards the sixties with a gusto that would have rivaled Kero's appetite. The heart monitor was so fast that Touya had to squint to see if there were any other arrhythmia; there was not, and Touya could not decide if that were a good thing or a bad thing.

Touya pointed at the IV bags. "Normal saline under pressure, now. What access do we have?"

"Two eighteen gauge and one sixteen gauge."

"You fucker," Touya said to the patient, who was, of course, unconscious. "Stop the sedatives, normal saline through the sixteen gauge.  _Gaki_ , if you are rebleeding, so help me—"

But the blood pressure plateaued with fluids, and stopping the sedatives had the blood pressure creeping up. Miyamoto arrived once the show was over.

"Worst day off. Ever." Touya glared at Miyamoto.

"When did you become a black cloud?" Miyamoto accused, clapping him on the shoulder. "Go home."

"Right," said Touya, and came over to where his sister and her guardian were waiting. "If you two want to hang around, be my guest, but I'm not staying a minute more in this place. If he codes, page the damn primary team. I'm bouncing."

* * *

He bounced. He went for a run around King Penguin Park. He did his laundry. He went to a cat cafe to play with cats. He came home and took a three hour nap. He watched television, and then got a phone call from Miyamoto, who wanted to go to a bar.

" _Sumimasen,_ " Miyamoto apologized again, "I kind of freaked out."

" _Iie,_ I understand. He nearly gave me a heart attack. How's he doing now?"

"Well, once you left, he started behaving himself, so maybe it was just you. We should ask the chair to give you the next week off; the kid might recover completely as long as you're not in the hospital."

"Ha. Ha. You're so funny. Is he going to be one of those miracle cases?"

"Not sure. Had to go down on the sedation, but can't wean him more; he got real fidgety, tried to pull out his foley. Blood everywhere. Had to restrain him again. Good tidal volumes though. Might pull through. We'll see. Have to hand it to you, though. Couldn't have been easy, seeing that."

"Well, I talked to the real one. Was off having fun in a tuxedo party, making fun of me for wearing scrubs. Puts things in perspective."

"Nice that someone is."

"Ugh."

"Your brother-in-law is so much smarter than you. He gets to go to parties and dress in tuxedos and make way more money than you."

"I  _know_ ," Touya groaned. " _Kami-sama,_ I hate that guy."

"Does he know about his doppelgänger?"

"Of course he does. I didn't tell him all the details though."

"Right. He doesn't need to know."

"Right."

"At least you had today off."

"Fuck," said Touya. "I have to go back tomorrow."

* * *

 

Touya was not staff this week, so he was able to ignore the alternate version of his brother-in-law, doing his own procedures in the OR and yelling at his scrub nurses for handing him the wrong instruments. He pretended that he was far too busy to go check on the boy when in reality he just did not want to go in and look at the face of someone he cared about, all beaten up, with that stupid shaved head, the foley draining blood clots because the kid tried to rip it out of his urethra, that jackass. Sakura, in contrast, visited this Syaoran and his companions every day after class. She got to learn a lot from them, like the fact that the other version of her was a princess, which Touya thought was rich, considering that his sister already behaved like a princess despite not being one. Kurogane was a ninja protector of a Princess Tomoyo, which was even richer, while Fay D. Fluorite was an extremely powerful magician, possibly as powerful as Clow Reed or Hiiragizawa Eriol before he gave half of his magic to Syaoran.

"That's reassuring," Touya remarked. "So if he gets upset we're all doomed."

"He's nice," Sakura insisted, to which Touya did not dignify with an answer.

Unfortunately, the boy did not die nor improve enough to leave the SICU somehow by the end of the week, and the following week, Touya was staff and had to round with the residents and the moronic medical students, who were all lovely, lovely idiots, so they had to stop by the boy's room, where the patient proceeded to get agitated once again, biting on the tube and pulling at his restraints, as if he knew, just  _knew,_ that Touya was in the room and really needed to get ready for his first case at 7:30. He was hydrated enough to produce tears, and Touya really wanted to seize him by his purple throat and yell at him while shaking him back and forth, neuro-checks be damned, because how was he supposed to focus on his cases today after seeing something like that? And then the boy went ahead and opened his leaking eyes, full of terror, looking straight at Touya, and Touya dearly wished Yue were here. Touya was a surgeon. They had nurses for this shit.

"Calm down," he rested a gloved hand on the boy's bruised cheek. "Don't bite. Don't bite down. You're alright."

He could almost hear the boy's thoughts as the patient continued to stare at him.  _I am hurting. I am frightened._ And the little shithead was still biting down on the tube, past the mouthguard.

 _Bebeep beep bebeep,_ went the ventilator, because machines suck.

"Easy," Touya tried to will it into the brat, "just stay calm. I know you don't like the tube. We'll take it out, alright? Just take it easy."

It somehow worked. The boy calmed down, blinking at Touya pleadingly, and Touya felt like the world's biggest asshole because he had to go to the OR in about thirty minutes and they still had twenty more patients to round on.

"Syaoran," Fay exclaimed, coming forward. "Doctor?"

"Keep him calm," Touya looked at the ventilator settings. Everything looked good, and the boy was awake. There was no reason for the tube, from the looks of it. "Let's extubate. Stop the sedatives; he doesn't need them. Stay here, let him know you're here, and keep him calm. I'll be back, alright,  _Ototo-san?_ "  _Damn it, he's not your Syaoran, you fucking baka._

"Alright," Kurogane agreed. He, his partner, and the white bunny creature had been with the boy day and night. They looked like they were in desperate need of a shower, which fit right in with general surgeons. Touya had a fleeting moment of considering whether or not to lend them some scrubs before remembering that they were not actually employees of the hospital. They were not, in fact, inhabitants of this realm at all.

"Alright," he moved back, allowing Fay to take Syaoran's scratched hand, "we'll be around, you know  _Misaka-sensei_ and  _Ito-sensei_ , the nurse will page them if you need them for anything, and they'll let me know if they need something. We're all good, but things are looking good, alright?"

"Will he recover fully, then?" Fay asked.

"From my standpoint," said Touya, "he's awake and he's being extubated, those are all good signs. Will he be able to do three-dimensional calculus in his head? We're not to that point yet. He needs to breathe on his own, then he needs to fart, then he needs to not throw up once he eats—he's got a few more steps to go. Let's go one by one. Anyway, so far so good."  _And I have other people to round on, so please don't ask any more questions._

He saw Kurogane open his mouth and turned around, pretending he did not see this, because he was down to twenty-five minutes and they still had twenty more patients to round on. Touya was already going to see the boy's tear-streaked face while in the OR, hovering before his mind's eye, like the annoying signs around the hospital that advocated hand-washing with those smiling models who clearly never washed their hands, because anyone who had to wash their hands between patients would know that there was nothing happy or sanitary about cracked, dry hands.

If that scrub nurse hands him a silk suture instead of a fast gut, Touya was going to throw a towel over the man's face to preserve sterility, and then punch him.


	2. In Which Touya Tries not to Lose His Mind

Post-extubation, Syaoran 2.0 no longer needed sedation and proceeded to freak the fuck out.

This initially troubled Touya a lot less than the residents, who were the ones on the front lines dealing with this, as he was supervising in the OR. Still, even from several floors away, he could sense the magic ripple, and then one of the steps he clearly remembered walking the resident through undid itself and the resident did not even notice, so he was not entirely surprised when he came by in between cases to find Sakura slamming the patient to sleep with the Sleep card.

"He's having flashbacks," she told him. "All the tubes and wires are scaring him. Are they really necessary?"

"They're not necessary. We just put them in for fun, because we think human beings are pin-cushions and we like all these monitors beeping at us."

"No need to be sarcastic,  _Oni-chan_ ," Sakura gave him a dirty look. "This isn't a long-term solution, you know. He blew out the windows. I had to use the Time card to rewind everything and keep him from trying again." She looked at the patient, worried. "I also have class in an hour."

"If you can rewind time, can you go back to my day off? I really want to play with cats again."

"Focus,  _Oni-chan_."

"What do you want me to say?"

Meanwhile, Kurogane and Fay, along with Mokona, who was hiding under one of the blankets, were looking at each other with grim expressions. Touya guessed that they had tried to calm the patient down and it did not work.

"I wish I could just erase his memory of it," Sakura said sadly, "of what had happened to him. I know he's not  _my_ _Syaoran-kun_ but…I hate seeing him like this."

"Well, the good news is, if he remembers the attack then maybe he has enough correct wires that the giant epidural hemorrhage didn't screw up his brain. Though I still wouldn't risk it, considering we aren't evolved to have epidural hemorrhages in the brain."

"You're so blasé about this," Sakura scolded.

"I hate this," Touya kicked at the wall. "This is why you don't treat your own family and friends."

He had to go back to the OR, where he focused on the case through sheer determination, because hell will freeze over before he let a Syaoran that was not even his distract him enough to sever major arteries. He was determined to just hang out in the OR with Miyamoto and the residents, hopefully watching baseball as they cleaned his room, but he found himself wandering back to the SICU again almost as if possessed, where he was treated the scene of his residents trying to calm the boy down while the nurses ran around doing something.

 _"Please,"_ the boy was rasping, because his voice had not recovered after all the damage,  _"please, no, no don't, I'll do anything, nooo, **please** ," _and he felt magic start to surge.

 _"I am Dr. Ito,"_ he heard Ito say very loudly,  _"you're in a hospital, you're safe—_ "

_"Why are you doing this, please, no no no, please—"_

Resigned, Touya went in. Kurogane was at the bedside. There was blood all over the blankets because the boy had ripped the IV out and the central line was about to follow. The restraints had also loosened, and the foley bag was filled with blood. Again. He felt magic start to gather, and Kurogane was holding down the boy's arm while the stupid blood pressure cuff was squeezing the other, and the boy was sobbing, face contorted in terror and pain.

"Please," the boy was still begging, "Kurogane, Kurogane please, I can't bear it, I know I'm being weak but please help me,  _please—_ " His amber eyes then landed on Touya, and his entire posture stiffened. "Y-Your Majesty…"

Touya really hoped his voice was too soft for most people to hear, but because life sucked, it probably was not soft enough for those that mattered.

" _Syaoran-kun,_ " he reached out, splaying his hand over the boy's sternum, "I need you to listen to me very carefully—"

The machine started beeping, loudly, and Touya broke off to look. The blood pressure was down again, which was the opposite of what it should do when someone is agitated. He looked back down to see Syaoran's eyes were glazing over and the boy's lips had turned blue.

 _Fuck._ He reached out to feel the boy's carotid pulse. He could not find it. He reached out under the boy's nose, and there was no breath.

 _Why the fuck didn't you do this last week?_ "Code blue," he announced, and backed away from the bed as everyone burst into motion. "Ito, start compressions. Akamatsu, start the timer. You, I need one milligram epinephrine and three hundred amiodarone drawn and ready. You, bag him. You two, grab the defibrillator. Someone tell me what happened before I walked into the room."

One of the medical students reported, "We just got called, he was agitated, confused, kept thinking that he was being tortured. He was getting out of the restraints, and his family was holding him down. It all started maybe minutes before you came in."

"What were his vitals throughout the day?"

"Afebrile, max temperature was thirty-eight, heart rate averaged in the high nineties, blood pressure was between ninety over sixty and one-teens over seventy, satting around mid-nineties."

"Time?"

"Forty-five more seconds,  _Sensei,_ " the nurse reported.

Touya looked in the direction of the dressing over the boy's abdomen. "Is he bleeding from the wound?"

The compressions made it somewhat difficult to take the dressing tape off, but the wound looked normal.

"How many days post-op is he?"

"Eight days."

" _Kuso,"_ Touya muttered under his breath.  _Shouldn't have extubated. Should have just kept the bastard sedated. What's a little ventilator associated pneumonia compared to a fucking **hemorrhage**. _ Stupid. "We're likely going to have to get him back in the OR. Perfed bowels and eight days out, all the valsalva he's doing; he's got a rebleed for sure. What antibiotics is he on? Is he bacteremic?"

"Blood cultures positive for E. coli."

"Two minutes!"

"Hold compressions," Touya looked up at the monitor, which was displaying a heart rate of 101. "Check pulse."

The bagger pressed a hand against the boy's neck. "No pulse, _Sensei._ "

"Pulseless activity. Resume compressions. Administer epinephrine."

The nurse hurried over to one of the IV's.

There was a rush of movement outside as the medicine residents arrived on scene. Ito had switched places with a technician. Touya folded his arms to watch.

"What were his labs today?"

"White count fourteen, hemoglobin ten point two, platelets two-thirty seven."

"One milligram epinephrine given."

Touya's pager went off. He pressed a button to shut it up. "What was the hemoglobin trend?"

One of the medical students looked through his notes. "It's actually been holding steady at that level."

"We've been giving him fluids."

"Time?"

"One minute, thirty seconds."

"Should I call the OR?" asked Ito.

Touya waved his hand. "Have them prep a room. Might not need it though."  _If he dies._

He did not die. They actually resuscitated him, much to Touya's shock, so they had to wheel him immediately over to the OR, where Touya had to reopen the abdominal wound and found blood everywhere. The saving grace was that they kicked out the orthopedics case, which really pissed off the orthopedics specialists; that gave Touya a profound sense of satisfaction, because he always enjoyed sticking it to those assholes. The boy coded again on his table, leading to Touya pawing through his bowels looking for the source of the bleed while the nurses and anesthesiologists compressed up above. He was absolutely certain that this was it for the kid, so it was even more surprising when they brought him back  _again_ , during which Touya found the source of the bleed (the compressions helped because blood squirted out of the area in question), and was able to cauterize the bastard.

They wheeled him back to the PACU with a tube back down in his throat. Naturally, after pulling off the miracle that was bringing the dead back to life  _twice_ while actively hemorrhaging, and actually bringing him back to something of a stable condition, the thing that everyone in the OR focused on was the fact that the patient had called Touya 'Your Majesty'.

"As if you don't act like a king already, Your Worship," said Miyamoto.

"It was pretty good," Touya ran with it. "These hands," he held them out, "they brought the dead back to life. Twice. And stopped the bleed. I win King of the OR for the week."

"It wouldn't have happened if you just kept that tube in there and the kid sedated."

"Shut up."

" _Hai,_ if you just kept the kid sedated," another staff surgeon, Yoshida, pointed out.

"Nearly kills the patient in order to look good saving his life—"

"Oh shut  _up_ ," Touya scowled, "why can't we focus on how awesome I was back there?"

"You were only awesome because you royally fucked up. Your Majesty."

"Oh fuck you," Touya exclaimed. "How was I supposed to know he'd freak out like that? He looked coherent."

"Should have told the chairman to give you the week off," Miyamoto laughed. "He would have recovered by now if it weren't for you. Might have gone down to the general floors."

"General floors? He'd still have a tube in his throat."

"He still has a tube in his throat, Your Majesty."

"I hate you all," Touya grumbled.

Next week's morbidity and mortality conference was going to be a nightmare.

* * *

He got home at seven, which was a good hour. He dropped his bag down without turning on the lights, plunked himself down next to a wall, bent his head into his hands and cried like a baby. It had to be a new low: King of the OR, no one died (or, well, stayed dead) on his table, and he was still sobbing like a mess when all his patients were alive. Touya had done this for long enough to have actually killed someone because of sheer ineptitude—several someones, actually, and though surgeons were not exactly the tearful bunch, he did cry after the first one, and sort of for the others after, but this had to be the first time he cried when no one died since he had been a resident and had to preround with a hangover—rite of passage, his seniors had told him after his staff had finished yelling at him, though beer pong was not worth interpreting blurry CTs while nursing a headache at shit-o-clock in the morning.

He was rudely jolted out of feeling sorry for himself when a  _hand_ pressed against his shoulder—he nearly gave  _himself_ an epidural slamming the back of his skull against the wall.

"Easy," Yue drew back, his figure, pale and fair, glowing a little in the darkness.

"What the  _fuck?!_ " Touya shouted. "How the  _fuck_ did you get in here?!"

" _…Sumimasen,_ " Yue blinked. "I just got here. We made the Loop…remember? Your sister? So we didn't have to go through airport security to visit each other?"

"What the  _shit?_ Why didn't you call first?"

"I've never called first," Yue frowned. "What happened? Did something happen at work?"

Touya inhaled and exhaled, trying to slow his racing heart. " _Kuso._ Nothing. He's still alive, for whatever that's worth. I fucked up, that's all."

"What happened?"

"I extubated him, like a  _moron_ ," Touya leaned his head back and winced when the wall pressed against a tender area on his scalp. That was going to turn into a goose egg for sure. "I thought, he's been vented for a week, he looked like he was ready for that thing to come out and I was ready to get that thing out. Then he had a rebleed because he kept flipping out and PTSDing all over the place; Sakura had to use the Time Card to rewind time and get him to calm the fuck down, and then he basically died twice, once while I was in the room and once while I was trying to stop the bleed. Shitting fuck on a fucking stick."

"But he's alive."

"Pfft, whatever good that will do. Brain bleed, brain drain with a hole in his skull, and codes twice. The sick fucks shoved a forty-five centimeter metal rod up his ass and left it there. It would be a miracle if he can fart without exploding his guts." Touya wiped his face with his palm. "Not to mention trying to pull out his foley with the balloon inflated—why do people do that? Why do people do that? Does the pain not send enough of a message that you should stop messing around? Fucking  _baka_."

Yue sighed, and then extended his arms out. "Come here."

"I'm fine."

"Come  _here,_ you  _gaki_."

"I'm  _fine_!" Touya sobbed, thus ruining the effect, and he had to keep his hands covering his face because he could not stop heaving. Yue took him by the shoulders and pulled him close, and the young surgeon leaned forward into the guardian's embrace. It helped, somewhat, in that he felt better, but not enough to stop crying like a baby.

Yue was quiet for a while, at least until Touya tired, when the guardian murmured, "He's alive, you saved him, and he was still breathing when you left. What had been done to him already set the stage, and if he dies it's because of that, not because of you. Things didn't look good for him even from the start, and that's not your fault. What happens after, well, you're not a god."

"I hate my job."

"You love your job."

"I hate it. What's the fucking point? I have no life and my patients have no lives."

"Be reasonable," said Yue.

Touya leaned away, wiping his face again. "I have to get up at four."

"Take a shower," Yue suggested, "wash off the day. I'll get dinner ready."

"Why the fuck did you come here anyway?"

"Syaoran was worried about you," Yue said as he stood and extended a hand to help Touya up. "Said he had a feeling."

"I'm on his radar?"

"You're family," the guardian reminded him.

* * *

"I expected it to be better," Touya confessed as he chewed on dinner, which tasted like ash in his mouth. Yue, who did not need to eat, chose not to eat and opted for watching him and making sure Touya filled his stomach.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the first time I doctored was in Hong Kong." Touya was usually careful about talking about that time; Yue was sensitive about it. He could not give a damn right now, though. "I was eighteen, there was blood and shit all over my hands. She perforated his bowels too, though I didn't understand what all the yellow-brown stuff was. Smelled like shit and blood, you'd think that would have given me a hint, but the kid kept talking to me, saying that I suck, even when I was telling him to shut up because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I thought I'd never be so scared again. Thought all this medical training's supposed to make me know what to do, but here I am, a doctor, and it's actually  _worse_ than when I was a teenage idiot with no medical background whatsoever."

"It  _is_ worse this time overall. He didn't get tortured for hours last time."

"They extubated him pretty quick, what was it, a few days? Of course, he wasn't valsalvaing all over the place. And he didn't have a forty-five centimeter rod shoved up his ass.  _And_ he had you; you were the first person he saw when he woke, and he knew he was safe. This one…I mean he had an epidural and who knows what he thought he saw when he woke. He saw  _my_ face and thought I was  _his_ Touya. 'Your Majesty'.  _Kami-sama_ , they're going to be insufferable this week."

Yue set his chin on his hand. The guardian was recalling that time, Touya knew, and for a moment the surgeon felt bad.

" _Gomen ne,_ " he muttered. "I didn't mean to bring it up like that."

"It's hard not to think about it, given the situation," Yue replied. "Besides, it's in the past. It will always hurt, to think about, but ultimately it's over and everything went well. Now my whole existence can be devoted to keeping him safe. It's everything I ever wanted."

"He's doing well?"

"He's coming over this weekend. Wants to see Sakura. Eriol told him he should probably avoid the hospital; not a good idea to run into the other version of himself."

"Eriol knows about this?"

"Syaoran called him after hearing about this Fay D. Fluorite. Quite a character across dimensions, but Eriol feels he's harmless, so long as we don't provoke him."

That was always reassuring.

"Might want to see him myself," Touya admitted. "Hearing his stupid voice is great and all, but I'd like to see his face."

"Will do," said the guardian. "You've stopped eating."

Touya took another mouthful. "You know, he's looking for his mom and dad."

"Hm?"

"Syaoran 2.0."

"You actually call him that?"

Touya shrugged, despondent. "That's what his friends told me. He's hopping around dimensions looking for his parents. Some maniac imprisoned him for years; he came out, stuff happened and now he lost his parents. Sixteen years old. Too bad we can't get Syaoran's parents to come around."

"Not sure that would be a good idea anyway," Yue pointed out. "That's sad. Seems like in any reality, that boy is destined to be orphaned."

"Good thing ours had you." A chill ran down Touya's spine, and against his wishes his mind punished him with the possibility of _their_ Li Syaoran, going through what this one did, and he wanted to bleach his brain. "You kept him out of trouble. Mostly."

Yue was solemn.

"You're doing good," said the guardian. "You have a tough job. But you're doing well. I'll go in with you tomorrow to see if maybe I can talk to his companions. I suppose I am Syaoran's father, of a sort."

"You're not this one's father."

"Really. I didn't know that."

Touya snorted. "I told my sister I wasn't going to be emotionally invested in  _two_ Syaoran's; one was enough. Fucking shit."

"Honestly," said Yue, "I think you'd be affected even if this weren't a Syaoran. A sixteen-year-old, and what had been done to him; that's horrible."

"Right, well, I would have liked it better if he weren't a Syaoran, regardless."

"Naturally," Yue humored him.

* * *

Touya had to round with the SICU team, so he heard about most of Yue's encounter second-hand. Syaoran 2.0 did not die overnight, and his vital signs were stable after the two packs of blood. He spent about two minutes in the room to make sure the ventilator settings were appropriate before hurrying away to round on other patients; he had a recovering necrotizing fasciitis who was still scary enough for him to delay turfing to the general floors, a patient who was post-debridement for mucormycosis and would probably be dead by the end of the week, and a bunch of other run-of-the-mill abdominal abscesses, motor-vehicle accidents (during which he got some dirty looks from orthopedics, suckers), and he loved and hated his job.

The meeting between Fay, Kurogane, Mokona, and Yue was described as "surreal". Fay was intrigued because Yue was clearly not human, and there was a lot of back and forth figuring out each other; Yue, who was thousands of years old and a proud parent, saw no reason to hide anything, whereas Fay and Kurogane were much more protective of their companion. Eventually, it came to light that Syaoran 2.0 was actually named Li Tsubasa. He was fourteen when he was captured by a Fei Wong Reed, and was imprisoned for a good seven years while his clone ran around, stealing his life. The clone which, apparently also functioned as his father, something that blew Touya's mind and made him want to quit the hospital. As for Tsubasa's personality, it seemed largely similar to their own Syaoran: brave, loyal, determined, with a steadfast goodness that persisted despite all the shit that had happened to him. The relationship he had with the other three was somewhat complicated: Mokona took to him quickly, but it took longer for Fay and Kurogane to accept the true Tsubasa, or whatever he called himself, after knowing and losing the clone first. They were friends, and yet more than friends, but less than brothers, and yet were brothers. Fay and Kurogane both cared deeply for Syaoran, but they all had their own issues that prevented them from truly supporting each other all the way.

According to Yue, it was difficult to look at Tsubasa, and yet not as hard as it could have been; the bond he had with his son hummed strong, and he had no such attachment to this alternate version. He shared with them Li Syaoran's story as well as his own; how he had roamed the world for thousands of years after the death of Clow Reed, a name they recognized—he also explained how Syaoran and he found each other, how they each became the other's world entire, and for this reason Yue knew Syaoran down to the blood and bone. He had Syaoran's pictures on his phone, which he shared with Fay and Kurogane; Mokona really appreciated the hats, and they were all entranced by the wedding photos. Overall, it seemed like Yue was able to provide a window into Tsubasa's childhood despite being the wrong parent, and ultimately they seemed even more sad than before, because there was no way Tsubasa could have the bright future Syaoran was looking forward to.

Still, Yue reported, there was a sense of familiarity about the boy, despite being from a different dimension and quite a few years younger than their own counterpart.

"He is a what would have been," Yue told Touya. "At his core, he is the same. His magic feels the same, and he feels the same. I took his hand and it was the same. I will never forget that six-year-old. That ten-year-old. Fourteen-year-old. Sixteen-year-old. It honestly seems like yesterday when I found him that fateful night. Sometimes I would recall those empty days before, when I was all alone, and I can't tell which one was the dream and which one the reality. It wasn't so long ago when he was sixteen. Seeing him now…doesn't feel like a stranger. Since he doesn't have real parents, I don't mind visiting him. He needs one, the poor child, and I know how to be one for him."

That was all well and good: Touya will leave the mothering to Yue, since in addition to the kid, the nec fasc patient was not doing well and the mucor patient was well on her way to dying, to the point where Touya really wanted to just skip her during rounds because what were they going to do, watch her pass like those internal medicine losers? He had sixty people in the SICU. In the OR, the surgeons mocked His Majesty relentlessly, while the Whipple Man (thus named because that was practically all he did, every day; where he even got so many pancreatic cancer patients was dumbfounding) kept flexing his biceps and trying to one-up Touya with his fancy personal modifications on a procedure that was already convoluted as it was. The orthopedic surgeons continued to give Touya dirty glares ("Go hammer a bone, you pricks,") while the patients complained about waiting for too long after fasting all day ("Cry me a river, I'm always fasting.")

It was probably really trying on Yue, since after a day of not thinking about not-Syaoran, Touya was always in a temper once he left the hospital, and Yue had to be  _his_ mother, making sure he ate and bothered to shower before dropping on his bed. So far, none of the SICU patients died, but they got an influx of new morons getting into motorcycle accidents, with the neurosurgeons fighting orthopedics over spinal surgeries and yet still dumping these patients on general surgery to follow every day. Not-Syaoran's vitals yo-yoed between high fevers despite antibiotics, tanking blood pressures and low oxygen sats, so that Touya could never justify skipping him on rounds; he was really not tolerating the sedation, but Touya kept it on because hell will freeze over before he brought the kid back to the OR for a fucking valsalva mishap. The saving grace was his penis was healing and the foley was no longer draining blood, so urology signed off, just in time for Infectious Diseases to come and screw up his kidneys with high-intensity antibiotics. By Friday, Touya came home, realized he was going to see Syaoran the following morning, and then dropped to the floor, curled up into a ball, and cried again like a baby.

"This fucking sucks," he exclaimed to Yue. "I'm on staff for the next three weeks. I'm going to look at your son and then I'm going to watch him code because that bastard's going to code while I'm on call, I  _know_ it."

"Touya—"

"I have to put up with three weeks of this shit! He's going to code on my shift!"

"You've done this for years," Yue reminded him.

"I know," Touya moaned, "but this is  _Syaoran._ And I've never seen someone hurt this badly when it's…intentional, like this. And a kid.  _Kuso_. Why the fuck didn't the chair hire some pediatric surgeons; they could have been dealing with this shit."

Yue took Touya by the arms. "It's going to be alright. I know this is hard for you. I know you are trying your best. For what it's worth, his friends know it too. They don't exactly have the same kind of demonstrably affectionate relationship I have with Syaoran, but they care a lot about him and they feel responsible for him. They haven't given you a hard time, right? It's because they know you're trying your best. They know you care. If…if things don't go well, no one will blame you."

Touya covered his eyes. "He was so scared. There were too many of them. He didn't understand what he did to provoke them. He didn't do anything; they were just there. They thought he was pretty, and they were mean, disgusting beings. They bashed his head in every time he was close to fending them off. They taunted him with what they were going to do to him and made him beg before doing it anyway. In the end he felt everything but couldn't even react enough to cry. And I didn't even see the whole thing because I can't stay long enough in the room; those residents and stupid medical students and that pharmacist and the nurse—"

Yue pulled him close.

"I don't even see him for more than two fucking minutes every day and that's still too much," Touya remarked into his chest. "He's not even really Syaoran. He just looks exactly like him. Bastard."

"You're making it better for him," Yue assured him.

"I stuck a foley up his dick and a tube down his throat and every time he moves he thinks he's back there again and I can't even take them out because we need to measure his intake and output and make sure he's fucking breathing."

"You're going to see Syaoran tomorrow and it will get better, I promise," Yue said seriously.

"Why the fuck are you so composed about this? He's  _your_ son."

"I'm not trying to save his life," Yue pointed out.

"Do you even have the power to?" Touya leaned back, wiping his face. "Sakura was talking about using her cards."

"I can hold him here, as can Sakura, but that doesn't mean he will heal right, nor that he will be whole."

"But you can hold him here."

Yue blinked. "Is that what you want?"

"Damn it," Touya sighed. "I don't know if it's more of a mercy to let him leave if he really can't hold on by himself."

"That's usually the case," said the guardian. "You're an experienced surgeon, Touya. You've seen your share of graphic cases. Just treat this as you would any other."

"I  _have_ been, I just don't know if I can keep doing it for three weeks."

"You'll see Syaoran tomorrow and it'll be better."

Touya really hoped so. 


	3. In Which Touya's Guests Go Through a Crisis (and He Goes Through One Too)

Li Syaoran, brother-in-law, budding MBA and bar buddies with sons of U.S. presidents and top-notch CEOs, arrived through the same portal Yue used every time they had to cross the planet. Touya, in his pajamas, waltzed up to the young man without even a "by your leave" to his sister or to Yue, and pulled him into a tight hug. They both probably had a number of witty remarks at the ready, but Syaoran chose to be silent, and Touya could not bring himself to utter a word. They stayed like that for a long time, with Touya feeling the boy's hair (and he still had hair,  _kami_ ) the back of his neck, the way his heart beat against the ribcage; young hearts were always satisfying like that.

Syaoran brought some gifts.

"From Napa, California," he set the champagne bottle on the table. "We can start with this, and then progress onto the rest—I have merlot, as well, and then, uh, Irish whiskey. We'll pace ourselves with that one. It has a kick."

"Cirrhosis. I love it." Touya grabbed at the bottle and made for the kitchen to remove the cork.

"I don't know if I approve of your methods," Sakura said to Syaoran.

" _Oni-san_ is stuck in the surgical intensive care unit for a month. Trust me, he needs to get wasted."

"He's right," Touya said from the kitchen, "I'm a doctor, and getting drunk is a valid treatment option."

"For  _what?_ " Sakura inquired perceptively.

"Oh, for lots of things. Life sucking. The world sucking. Yourself sucking."  _Pop_ went the cork, followed by a respectable fizz.

"See?" Syaoran remarked. "Confirmation from a doctor. I knew there was some use in you going to medical school."

It was so nice, seeing a happy, healthy Syaoran. The champagne was stronger than it tasted, as was the merlot, and soon Touya was feeling happy and probably staring at his brother-in-law in a not-so-appropriate way, though he couldn't give a damn.

"I don't think he's going to make it to the whiskey," Kero noted.

"No way," said Syaoran, "he can't be that much of a lightweight. He's just a little buzzed and probably really sleep-deprived."

"I am absolutely really sleep-deprived."

"So he's just kind of drunk to begin with."

"That…validates what I just said," Kero pointed out.

"No it doesn't," said Syaoran. "Sleep drunk isn't real drunk. Refill,  _Oni-san?_ "

"Please."

The younger man yawned as he obliged. "Ugh. Portal transportation doesn't help with the jetlag."

"Do you want to take a nap?" Sakura asked.

" _Iie._ I kind of want to meet these companions. Not sure how, considering Eriol's been pretty adamant about me not seeing my alternate self. What difference does it make? We're in the same world already, wouldn't that mess everything up by now?"

"As a general rule," Kero replied, "you shouldn't meet the other you's. If you see each other, you might merge, and that could be disastrous."

"I wouldn't," Yue extended an arm to place his hand on Syaoran's back. "I know you are curious, but best not chance it."

"Right," Syaoran sighed. "I don't want anything to happen to Yue."

That was not what the guardian was worried about, Touya knew. Syaoran was thinking about how his own magic supported Yue's and kept the guardian alive. Yue cared about Syaoran too much to worry about that. If anything were to happen to this Syaoran, the guardian would be ruined regardless of the magical bond that allowed Syaoran to sustain Yue's very existence.

"They wouldn't be happy to see you," Sakura also pointed out. "I mean, they're curious too, but they have a very different life compared to ours. They've all lost a lot, and with what happened to their Syaoran, they're not looking at a future where he gets to marry his Sakura and goes to America to get drunk with CEOs. Every time they see  _me_ they're happy at first, but then they get really depressed."

"He's really not doing well, then?" Syaoran rubbed his mouth.

"He's in the SICU," Touya said flatly. "People don't tend to hang out in the intensive care unit if they're doing well. Other than the eye patients who need drops placed every hour.  _Kami,_ should have been an ophthalmologist," but eyes creeped him out. Ophthalmologists stick needles and knives into eyes for a living. The patient stares back at you while you cut.  _Eugh._

"He nearly died earlier this week," said Yue.

"Really!" Syaoran blinked. "You didn't tell me about this. I thought  _Oni-san_ was just annoyed with having two of me around."

"I  _am_ annoyed with having two of you around." It occurred to Touya that while Syaoran probably sensed Touya was distressed, the idiot had a limited perception of why, because no one had told him the details of everything that happened to his alternate self.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Don't stay out too late, don't get into motor-vehicle accidents, and I want a Rolex watch."

"I'll get you one when I get myself one."

Touya burped. That champagne was really sparkly.

"See, that's the thing," Syaoran went on, pointing at Touya. "What would be the point? You can dress him up but you can't take him out."

"Oh fuck you,  _gaki._ "

* * *

"Having Yue here will help," Syaoran told Touya later, while Yue, Kero, and Sakura convened in the kitchen.

"You think?"

"His magic feels good. And if this Syaoran, or Tsubasa, or whatever, has my old magic, he'd gravitate toward Yue."

"I thought you took a while to trust him, at first."

"I was really scared." The mirth left his eyes as he recalled that time, and Touya suddenly felt uncomfortable despite the nice haze over his brain; he did not like that Syaoran and Tsubasa were actually quite similar on the inside, not just on the outside. "I was afraid to trust my feelings. But you have to understand, I escaped the sorcerers for about a year before. If I really wanted to, I would have tried much harder to escape Yue."

"With a broken leg and a fever?"

"It's hard to say for sure," Syaoran admitted, "I guess part of it was that I was too exhausted to fight anymore, but I did want to trust him."

"Of course you did," said Touya. "You were exhausted."

Syaoran shrugged. "Well, he's probably not feeling all spunky right now either."

Touya sighed. "You  _are_ right though, I think. Yue stands the best chance. I sure don't. I didn't go into general surgery to be all lovey-dovey."

"A lovey-dovey Kinomoto Touya." The brat suddenly smirked. "Do you suppose there is such a version of you out there?"

"I know I'm an actual king somewhere."

"Oh you must have got a kick out of that one."

"That was great. And Sakura was a princess, which is hilarious. Can you imagine the  _kaijuu_ , being an actual princess? What a nightmare."

Syaoran laughed, sounding rather charmed. "I can imagine that."

He did not get kicked in the shins by her, Touya remembered. Might as well; he was her husband. Touya ruffled the young man's hair. Those brown locks were getting on the long side.

Unlike Tsubasa, whose head was still bald on one side.

"I don't know if I can save you," he said suddenly.

"Hm?"

"Even if you survive," Touya looked away, "I don't know if there will be any neurologic sequelae, personality changes. Probably personality changes for sure, I don't know. Usually people like us don't worry about that; we saved your fucking life—go to your own fucking doctor for the rest."

"Listen," Syaoran stated, "there's an alternate version of me that's sixteen years old. Who knows how many me's are out there. Ones where I drowned, and never met Yue. Ones where I was killed along with everyone else. There are probably versions of me that are evil overlords or lowlife murderers. Versions of me might even be the kind of person to do whatever was done to this version of me. And there might be versions of you that are evil overlords, probably even flat out killed me. If World War Two started sixty years later," he looked Touya in the eye, "the two of us would have a very different relationship."

Touya shuddered.

"For what it's worth," Syaoran reached out to squeeze his shoulder, "I think he arrived here for a reason. Out of all the worlds they could have gone to, they came to the one where you're a smelly surgeon and Yue is my father in…basically every possible way. I think he will live, and he will be alright, because you are a meathead and  _Otou-san_ is…well, Yue."

" _You're_ a meathead," Touya muttered, which Syaoran ignored.

"Using magic in this case is not preferred, but we'll do what we can. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I know you tried your best. And I know you'd try your best, if it were really me."

Touya shuddered again. "Don't say that."

"Hey," Syaoran tilted his head, "you did it before."

Water in the shop, and Syaoran's body on the ground, Touya's hands covered in blood and brown-yellow stuff, Syaoran's little face pale and gray. Syaoran's little face, taped up so the tube would not leave his throat, Yue at the bedside and the Chinese doctors speaking Cantonese and none of them knew what they were sayiing; they could have been saying that Syaoran will die, and Touya had only just gotten to know him, those stupid photos Yue took of Syaoran in those stupid hats, and Syaoran's laugh, Syaoran teasing Yue—they had no idea the normally serious child was such a bright ball of energy when he felt at ease with people he trusted—

"That time in Hong Kong," Syaoran's voice broke into the memory, "one of the things I think kept me going was seeing how scared you were. I realized you cared. I didn't think that you would ever care about me. And I knew, just  _knew_ , that I would wake up again, because you were there to take care of me."

Touya rubbed his forehead. Forget about Yue—Hong Kong after the Final Judgment was a touchy subject for Touya as well.

"I didn't do much."

"There wasn't much you could do," Syaoran pointed out, "but you did it anyway. I don't know what's going on with Tsubasa, but no matter what happens to him, I'll always look up to you. Figuratively, of course, since I'm taller than you."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am."

"You're delusional."

"You're drunk."

Touya opened his mouth to retort, and then blinked.

"Ha, got you," Syaoran grinned cheekily.

"So  _that's_ why you brought the drinks," Touya exclaimed.

* * *

 

The medical intensivist started giving Touya shit about keeping Tsubasa intubated. Touya ignored this, because he always ignored medicine doctors when they were being stupid. Wednesday was Morbidity and Mortality rounds; a nice, safe hour for surgeons to bring up disaster cases that could have been avoided and yell at each other about how they fucked up. Touya was absolutely certain that extubating Tsubasa would come up, but it turned out there was a patient with gastritis that was misdiagnosed as gallstone, leading to an unnecessary laparoscopic cholecystectomy, a slightly more necessary gastric biopsy, and a very pissed off patient missing a piece of his stomach and his gall bladder. Not that Touya fully escaped the charm that was surgeons trying to be smart; they did bring up extubating traumatized patients, but Miyamoto pointed out that the ventilator exuded positive pressure in the body cavity anyway, and the rebleed would just have happened later, likely at night, when no one wanted to put up with this shit.

Eventually, though, Tsubasa's vitals started getting truly worrisome, and Touya sensed they had kept him under for as long as the boy could handle. It was now or never.

"Do you think you can keep him calm?" he asked Yue.

"I'll certainly try," said the guardian.

Touya left the weaning to the residents while the medical intensivist hung around writing notes. They actually extubated the boy while Touya was in the OR doing an exploratory laparoscopy. He came around to witness Yue leaning over the boy in the bed, who had a venti-mask on. Tsubasa's arms were around the guardian, which was encouraging.

"I don't know how he did it," Fay said to Touya, sounding as if he could not decide whether to feel relieved or dismayed. "Syaoran started panicking, but then he just touched his face, said something to him, and Syaoran just…calmed down."

Touya looked at Yue, who had to know he was in the room already, but decided not to bother acknowledging him.

"Our Syaoran use to have nightmares," Touya said. "Yue had a lot of experience reorienting him."

"Our Syaoran doesn't know who the hell this guy is," Kurogane pointed out.

"But your Syaoran probably has the same intuition. He knows Yue is there to help him."

"He didn't know we were there to help him," Mokona whimpered, upset.

"Well neither of you  _love_ him," Touya pointed out. It was probably not the best way to word things, because Kurogane and Fay froze in a very stilted and inscrutable manner, but Touya gave up on tact when he chose this profession. Though he tried to alleviate the words by adding, "Yue was Syaoran's mother and father both. He's washed and dressed him, kissed and hugged him, fought off monsters for him and even turned against his creator over him. When Yue says he knows Syaoran down to the bone, he means it. He's literally set his broken bone. The three of you are just friends."

That probably did not help, actually.

 _Whatever._ Yue was keeping the boy calm, at least. If Tsubasa chose to trust Yue, Touya was not going to question it, and these three losers could have their crisis by themselves.

But then Yue lifted his head.

"Touya," he called, " _Kurogane-san_ and  _Fluorite-san_ have been here all this time. Syaoran is responding well to me; I was thinking they can go over to my place to shower and change."

 _You guys haven't showered and changed in two weeks?_ Ugh!

"They've used the patient bathrooms," Yue gave him a look, as if the guardian knew what Touya had just thought—probably true, "but those places are kind of gross. When you get off tonight, do you think you can bring them over? I'll give you the keys. And maybe bring Syaoran's stuffed bear and that peony afghan he likes."

Touya blanched. That stuffed bear was a gift from Sakura. That peony afghan was also a gift from Sakura. In fact, both were made by Sakura. Was Yue really…?

"He wouldn't mind," said the guardian.

 _Uh…if you say so_.

"Sure. If all goes well," Touya looked up at the clock, "well I won't jinx myself."

It was a good thing he didn't jinx himself, because he was able to leave at six thirty. Touya usually biked to work, but with Kurogane and Fay, he obviously could not bike from the hospital. He ended up pushing his bicycle alongside the two, with Mokona on the handlebars; that creature was  _ridiculous_ , and they hid Kurogane's big sword in a giant plastic bag in case the police were patrolling. They stopped on the way to get clothes, since Yue was unlikely to have any that would fit either.

Syaoran had not been living with Yue for a while; he stayed at the school dorms for college and then went to the University of Pennsylvania for business school, so other than the few vacations a year, he was never in the house. Sometimes he would come over through the Loop portal, the way he did over the weekend, but this was troublesome because no one expected Syaoran to be in Japan most of the time, which meant that Syaoran was usually stuck indoors. In addition, the time difference made this rather pointless anyway, so Syaoran tended to simply stay in Philadelphia with his new friends there. More often than not, Yue would head over there instead, since "there was more to do". Whatever that meant.

Still, his room was made and ready for him; green covers, as usual. On the walls were awards certificates and some photographs. Sakura's teddy bear was actually  _not_ in the room, and neither was the afghan; Yue probably forgot that Syaoran actually took both of these with him to Philadelphia, because  _why would he not?_ Touya kind of circled around the room, wondering what patients typically wanted, (food that did not taste like cardboard? Their pets? A room where they did not have to listen to IV machines beeping every time someone bent their arm?) before giving this up as a lost cause. At least Fay and Kurogane got to shower in a normal bathroom.

"Where are the hats?" Mokona asked while Kurogane was taking his turn.

"They were just having fun in a mall, they didn't buy the hats."

"Oh." The creature looked very disappointed. It settled, looking extra round and fluffy.

"Do you even poop?" Touya wondered out loud. Not that he looked very hard, but he never saw a butthole, and this kind of bugged him.

"You're a very strange person," Fay declared while he toweled his hair, "and that's saying something because I've met quite a few odd people."

"I'm a surgeon. Bowel movements are a vital sign."

"Next time I see the King, I don't think I can look at him the same way again."

"Bet the King never got his hands dirty."

"Not the same way you do," Fay agreed. "You are very different from the King. It's a little strange, considering that from what I hear, the Syaorans are the same."

"Am I?" Touya asked. "I mean, I'm  _am_ a king of sorts. When I'm in the OR."

"Well, for one thing, you actually seem to like Syaoran," Fay looked at him. "The King didn't really like him."

Touya thought back to Tsubasa's reaction to him and wondered if maybe the boy freaked out initially because Touya's face was the first one he saw.

"Why didn't I like him?" he asked.

"Not sure, actually. It wasn't really a true hatred. He just…didn't like Syaoran. I think it was partially brotherly protectiveness, and partially incompatible personalities."

"Hm," Touya frowned in thought. "I didn't like him at first. He was a  _gaki_. But he had a lot of reason to be, at the time. I don't know the details of what happened to his family, but we visited the clan territories and the bones were all just…there. It seemed like a sudden, violent massacre, and Syaoran was the only survivor. He spent about a year getting captured and then escaping his captors, and then when he met Yue, Yue was the only person who was even a friend. When he came to Tomoeda, initially, he was kind of socially awkward. Never had friends before. All things considered, it's really a tribute to Yue's parenting that Syaoran didn't turn into a sociopath."

"I'd like to meet him. He sounds like a great person."

"He said he wanted to meet you," said Touya. "We'll see. There's some caveat about meeting alternate versions of yourself that I don't really understand. A friend warned him against it."

"It's generally not a good idea," Fay agreed, "but I'm not Syaoran."

" _Iie,_ he meant meeting you without meeting  _Tsubasa-san_."

"Oh." Fay looked down. "I don't think that would be hard. All we have to do is leave the hospital."

"True." Touya looked at the time, and wondered if there was any chance Syaoran could pop over before class or something.

Kurogane showered like a soldier, and came out minutes later, dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants. He looked like a punk, which was rather appropriate. Touya managed to get Syaoran on the phone; the younger man sounded a little harried.

 _"Well, I have to meet my preceptor at nine,"_ the boy said,  _"which is in about an hour, and I need to get changed because I didn't expect to have to wake up early today. Maybe…well, when I'm done you're getting ready in the morning. This really isn't ideal."_

Touya had to agree.

Fay was watching the phone; Touya had put Syaoran on speaker, and though none of their extra-dimensional visitors uttered a word, all of them seemed to be listening intently.

_"How's he doing, anyway?"_

"The tube's out! He's breathing on his own! Yue's currently cuddling him." A thought occurred to Touya. "I hope he doesn't weird everyone out."

 _"Yue wouldn't care._ "

"True."

 _"Well, that explains a lot,"_ Syaoran yawned.  _"If they want to hang around the house, I can come by later; tomorrow morning, or something."_

"I don't know if they would. They probably want to go back to watch after the other you."

_"Whatever. Go sleep, Doofus. You picked a horrible profession."_

"My profession is way cooler than yours."

_"Keep telling yourself that."_

"Loser."

 _"Pfft. Ja, Oni-san."_ The line cut.

"Pain in my ass," Touya muttered fondly. He was probably doomed to be a surgeon from the start, given how much he enjoyed being annoyed.

"It must have been hard for you to see him," Fay noted.

"Hm?"

"Our Syaoran."

Touya twisted his lip as he set the phone down. "He's my brother in all but name. It wasn't easy. Add to the fact that I had seen him like that before."

"What do you mean?" Kurogane tilted his head. "Your Syaoran was also attacked?"

"It's not the same. He was younger. Ten years old. We went to Hong Kong—his hometown, for his birthday. At the time…Yue was still a guardian of Clow, but my sister had earned the cards and became their master. Her presence woke an old…well, a ghost of someone Clow Reed knew in the past. Syaoran got hurt in order to protect her. He got very hurt."

Considering the outcome, the memory of that period should not hurt so much, but that moment of panic was so potent. Syaoran never knew and had always been perplexed by Touya's chosen career, considering how often Touya complained about his job, but that incident was the reason Touya went into medicine. Touya did not want Syaoran to know, because then the boy might never feel comfortable teasing him about it again.

"At the time I had to take care of Sakura and Tomoyo," he went on, "and they only allowed family to stay after hours, so Yue stayed with him while I took the girls home. He was in the hospital for a while, took a long time to recover. Had a small bowel obstruction a couple of years after that."

"What's that?" Kurogane asked.

"Scar tissue from trauma," Touya explained. "Your bowels tend to be moving all the time, sometimes they get tangled in the scar tissue and get pinched and stuff can't get through. Not fun. Fortunately for Syaoran, he didn't have to go to the OR for that; they just shoved a tube up his nose to decompress and gave his bowels a rest. Hasn't had that issue since."

"Ten years old," Kurogane remarked. "Brave lad. Did he get the bastard?"

"Well, she was a ghost, so she was a little bit beyond him, but he probably slowed her down. Sakura was none the worse for wear, anyway."

An uncomfortable silence fell.

"Anyway, you can stay here, or you can go back; sounds like Yue might be staying there either way."

"We should probably go back," said Fay. "With Mokona here, Syaoran wouldn't be able to understand a word Yue says."

" _Matte_ — _nani?_ You mean you don't speak Japanese where you come from?"

Fay and Kurogane looked at him.

"Oh  _fuck."_

* * *

Fortunately, Mokona's absence did not escalate things. There was one dangerous moment, Yue reported, when the nurse had come in to draw blood and Tsubasa did not like the look of that at all. It was impossible to explain to him what this was for, but Yue offered to get pricked, which reassured the boy that at least this was not going to hurt him. He did not appreciate the actual needlestick, but they managed to avoid disaster.

"Well, good to know that his logical processing centers are still functional," Touya sank into a chair.

"He's having a headache."

"Good. That will be there for a while." _Maybe the rest of his miserable life._ "What about his belly?"

"Not sure. He doesn't like it when I happen to put pressure on the bandages."

"Naturally," Touya winced. "Though it really shouldn't hurt that much at this point." He wavered between laziness, because he did not want to get up from the chair again, and nagging anxiety, because what if?

Tsubasa did not appreciate Touya touching him, but he also seemed intimidated by him and very meek. He had yet to actually speak, this time around, but his eyes might as well talk; they were wide and scared, and only Yue seemed to provide any comfort. He shoved Touya's hands off his belly before he got to the fourth quadrant.

"Syaoran," Yue began.

" _Iie,_ it's fine." No need to scare the kid.

But then Tsubasa's breath hitched, and he reached down. It took a split second for Touya to realize what he was grabbing at, but that was enough for the boy to clench a fistful of the blankets. Touya slammed his hand down on the wrist to keep the boy from yanking.

"Son of a bitch!" Tsubasa had felt the foley. "Stop—stop it!" Touya gave him a glare.

The boy started trembling.

"What's happening?" Kurogane stepped over.

"He's trying to rip out his foley again."

Tsubasa shook his head desperate and broke into tears. He yanked at his trapped hand, though he did not release the fistful of blankets. Nearby, the heart monitor was starting to beep.

"Syaoran," Yue took the boy's face, "Let go for a minute. Let go."

Tsubasa looked up at the guardian, silently pleading.

"Let go for a minute, let go, I'm here. Just for a minute."

"Syaoran," Touya ordered, since the boy seemed to respond better to this name, "I need you to let go. Relax your fingers, now."

"Do what he says," Yue encouraged.

By the time the nurse came to check on things, Tsubasa had obeyed. He tolerated Yue's trapping of his wrists better than Touya's, which figured. Touya lifted the blankets to make sure there was no blood draining; fortunately, there was no need to call urology again, though Tsubasa _really_ did not like even this fleeting glance, prompting Touya to cover him quickly.

"Do you really still need to keep that in there?" Yue asked.

"From my standpoint, not really, but I don't think he'd tolerate us having to place the foley back in if something happens later." Touya thought about it for a minute. Nephrology wanted in's and out's, and the kid's creatinine was still high. "Think he can use a urinal?"

Yue glanced down at the boy. "To be honest, I don't know. He's not really with it. He might end up wetting the bed instead of requesting one."

Odd that Yue would know this, but Touya had learned never to question parenting instincts. Except when they were wrong, which sometimes they were, but Yue was not a stupid parent.

"Right, let's not do that, then."

 _Kami,_ the things one has to consider in medicine.

"Why isn't he talking?" Touya asked, as Kurogane folded his arms next to him to regard the boy, who allowed Yue to fold him into the guardian. "You said he was complaining of headaches."

"Well, he wasn't really talking then either," Yue admitted. "He just kept grabbing at his head."

"Does he understand anything we're saying? Mokona's here now," Kurogane frowned.

Tsubasa just clung tighter to Yue.

"Well, he let go when we told him to."

"Oi," Touya tapped the boy on the shoulder, startling him. Yue gave Touya a slightly dirty look, but he got Tsubasa's attention. Touya held up three fingers in front of the boy's face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Tsubasa cringed away, even raising his hands to try to cover his head.

"Can you tell me your name?" Touya asked again. "What's your name?"

Syaoran was not receptive to this either. Touya straightened.

"Well, this is excellent."  _Not._

The most discouraging part was when Mokona hopped on the blankets, wriggling up to snuggle into Tsubasa's chest, and the boy pushed the creature away. Not forcefully, but definitively.

Touya glanced at Kurogane and Fay. "This normal?" he asked, not very hopeful.

Of course not.

"You think you can handle this tonight?" Touya asked Yue.

"I don't need sleep," the guardian said with amusement. "If they want,  _Fluorite-san_ and  _Kurogane-san_ can get some rest over at my house."

"Good, because I do need sleep," Touya turned around. He still had not changed out of his scrubs from the day. Yuck.

* * *

The next day, Touya had a number of add-ons that stretched the day out till one in the morning, and the following day he had a later start because he had to give a lecture to the medical students—always fun to do after a late night. They were able to step down Syaoran, which took him off Touya's hands. The mucor patient actually got better, probably due to the new antifungal agent the Infectious Disease doctors were so excited about, while the necrotizing fasciitis coded out of the blue and expired. Touya requested an autopsy to find out what the fuck happened there. On Friday, he actually had no cases at all, which was generally a rare and boring sort of day. He gave a call to Syaoran in Philadelphia; it was Thursday night over there, but Syaoran agreed to come over.

Since the SICU was still filled with patients, Touya could not leave the hospital, but there was a meeting room close by where he could bring Fay and Kurogane with him, Mokona opting to stay with Yue and Tsubasa. The boy was dressed in a green sweater and dress pants, sporting a new haircut.

" _Oni-san._ "

" _Ototo-kun._ "

"It's always weird going from evening to early morning," Syaoran gestured to the windows, which showed the bright sunshine. "Anyway," he looked at Fay and there was a moment when both of them just stopped, and Touya's instincts started to twist with unease, but whatever it was resolved on its own.

"Syaoran," said Fay. "I'm Fay. This is Kurogane."

He did not introduce Kurogane with a silly nickname this time.

"Good to meet you both," said Syaoran.

Then a silence fell.

Syaoran stood, a little bit bemused, while Fay and Kurogane appeared to hold on to their composure by sheer force of will. Something about seeing Syaoran seemed to affect them profoundly, but Touya could not be sure if they were very happy, very sad, or some mixture of both. Syaoran, on the other hand, had no emotional attachment to either of them, and only perceived that he was having some kind of effect, just by being there.

" _Wa,_ " said Fay, after a long time. "You turn into quite a handsome young man."

"Uh,  _arigatou?_ " Syaoran glanced at Touya before looking back. "That's—uh, I'm sure your Sy—Hm."

"He's taller than you, Kurogane," Fay remarked.

Kurogane stepped forward. It was rather hard to tell, with Syaoran's haircut. Syaoran did not stretch his neck out like an ostrich the way he would when he compared himself with Touya, but he looked away from Kurogane to avoid turning this into some kind of macho contest and let the ninja decide for himself.

"Good height," said the older man.

"How old are you?" Fay asked.

"…I'm twenty-three."

"Wa," said the fair-haired sorcerer. "So that's what our Syaoran should look like in seven years."

"Well," Touya started, but decided not to mention that their Tsubasa would likely have a different rate of development.

"Is he short?" Syaoran looked at Touya. "Was I short when I was sixteen?"

"You're still short."

"Seriously," Syaoran glared. "I think I was always a bit tall. There was only a couple of years when Sakura was taller than me."

"Oh boy did she miss that."

"I know." Syaoran chuckled. "One thing I cannot let her win at, though. Would you sit down? These hospital chairs aren't the fanciest but this is  _Oni-san_ 's fault."

" _Gaki._ " Touya huffed.

But their visitors were not ready to sit down. Fay stepped forward and took Syaoran's hands. Syaoran allowed them, looking concerned.

"So nice," said Fay, and then reached up to feel Syaoran's upper arms. "So nice."

Syaoran did not say anything while Fay was engaged in this awkward feel-up, but he turned his head to give Touya a look.

"Wizard," Kurogane broke in, "Stop being a creep and sit down."

"Sorry," said Fay, stepping back. "It's just…your…father had been so…so familiar with y—with our Syaoran. And I can kind of see why, but also…it's been a while since I saw you so whole, and I don't think I've ever seen you so happy."

Sometimes Syaoran would call Yue 'Father' and other times he would call him by name. There was some rhyme or reason to it, but Touya never figured out how he decided. In this case, though, it seemed the young man wanted to emphasize it more.

" _Otou-san_ is very special," he told Fay, sitting down even though their guests showed no interest in doing the same. "He's been alive for a very long time and it often shows.  _Otou-san_ recognized me in the other me; it seems like fundamentally we're similar enough. How is he doing?"

Kurogane and Fay did not answer. Syaoran frowned, and looked at Touya.

"Well, you're not talking, not sure if you understand anything that's going on. The saving grace is that Yue can keep you calm, but he's been trapped in the same room with you for the last couple of days."

Syaoran scowled. "Did the other me get brain damage or something?"

Touya looked over at their visitors. "Not sure."

Syaoran was thoughtfully silent for a moment. He then looked at the visitors.

"These two weren't able to calm him down?"

"From the sounds of it."

"You were the reason he got hurt, weren't you?" Syaoran asked bluntly.

Oh  _shit._ Really? Kurogane and Fay stopped moving. They did not even tense, but they just froze like statues in the middle of a breath.

"It was not like that," Fay said after a moment. "Kurogane and I simply let our guard down. Syaoran had always been a resourceful child, one who could take care of himself. He made his own decisions and accepted the consequences for them. For the longest time, we had traveled with his love, Sakura, who was often the more vulnerable of us. At the time, we did not consider that he might become a prime target simply because he looked young, and the tastes of those in that society should veer towards young males."

Touya leaned forward. "Why did it take you hours to get to him?"

"We each had a task at the time. We were going to meet later that afternoon after each of our errands."

"While Mokona was the only one who could interpret for anyone?"

Syaoran looked at Touya when he heard this.

"We've separated this way before," Fay said sadly. "Syaoran would stay behind to protect Sakura but…otherwise we often did fine. And we have been doing fine. I honestly don't know what went wrong, this time around. It was broad daylight and there were people about. Kurogane and I met at the rendezvous point later on, but Syaoran did not meet us there. We waited another hour for him before we realized something must be wrong. We searched where he should have gone but he had never arrived there. We asked around but no one would tell us anything. Finally, we found him in an alley; his attackers were still there." His speech stuttered, and the sorcerer abruptly covered his face with his hands.

"As far as I understand," Syaoran said after a moment, "the other me had magic."

"Everyone had magic in this world," Kurogane muttered an oath that did not translate. "Those bastards were not unskilled, according to Fay. We barely made it out of there ourselves; we didn't know if you were dead or not. Mokona transported us away as soon as I was able to pick you up. You—he—wasn't moving at all, and his head was bleeding like crazy."

 _His head wasn't the only thing bleeding like crazy,_ Touya thought.

"You didn't sense anything was wrong until after he didn't show up?" Syaoran frowned.

Fay kept his face in his hands and did not answer.

"They're not like Yue,  _Ototo-chan,_ " Touya said softly. "It's not like they're magically bonded to the other you."

Syaoran gave Touya a look, and suddenly Touya remembered how Yue scared the living shit out of him a week ago by just showing up in his home, because Syaoran 'had a feeling'.

 _Huh._ This really brought to question just what these two were to Tsubasa. Not family, clearly.

"True," the younger man said anyway. "Sometimes these things happen, horrible as it is. What were you all doing? Looking for his parents? What happened to them?"

What came out was this long and convoluted story involving Clow Reed, a space-time witch, a number of clones and a number of prices, and Touya instantly wished this question had never been asked.

Syaoran looked at Touya. "I think I might need to visit London."

"You think Eriol can help with this?"

"Well, it's all his fault, from the sounds of it," Syaoran pointed out, "and he gave half of his magic to me, so he'd need my cooperation if we're going to do any heavy-duty lifting. Should be a piece of cake for him; Clow gave me a parent, so it shouldn't be an issue to give other-me one as well. Though," he paused, "if other-me had brain damage, what do you suppose happened to the clone's memories?"

Touya really wanted to slit his wrists. "I'm a surgeon, Syaoran. I cut and I sew. Don't ask me about this magic shit."

Fay leaned forward. "You can give his parents bodies again?"

"The bodies aren't the problem," said Syaoran. "It's what you fill them with." He looked down. "He was raped, wasn't he."

Silence.

"You were all talking around it," he continued. "I don't need to hear the details. I don't want to." He sighed. "And possible brain damage. I wouldn't want to go on after something like that."

 _Oh come on._ Seriously? Touya was the surgeon and yet Mr. MBA Li was the one with less tact. "Well you're fucking welcome."

" _Iie,_ I'm just saying this is how he would feel," Syaoran explained, demonstrating that he was not such an idiot after all. "He doesn't have Yue, he doesn't have his parents, what does he have?"

"He has Sakura."

"Oh please. You seriously think I'd be able to face Sakura after something like that?"

Touya blanched. "She'll kill you if she ever heard you say that."  _I might just kill you for saying that too._

Syaoran's hand traveled to his own stomach, a subconscious gesture whenever he remembered the old wound. "I still remember, back in fifth grade when Eriol first showed up, before I knew who he was and what he was here for. I couldn't do  _anything_ , even homework tired me out, and I use to be so good at anything athletic. Soccer, martial arts, I picked everything up like  _that,_ " he snapped his fingers with his free hand. "Then this British kid shows up and Sakura's all enchanted by him and I was so  _mad_ because I realized…well, that was when I realized I loved her. Funny how it happens. But I felt  _so_ insecure. He was better than me at everything. Of course, later I learned that it was because he was actually in his thirties and just happened to look like a ten-year-old, but still. He was better than me at  _everything_ , and I thought, well, who  _would_ Sakura choose, the one with a giant scar on his stomach who had zero stamina? And at the time Yue was fading and I thought it was my fault. I thought he was fading because he was torn between Sakura and me. So I was trying,  _really hard_ not to make it harder on him, but there were times when I probably needed him. I was afraid. But I was afraid of making him worse, and even after Eriol revealed himself to me, bastard didn't tell me everything. There were times when I wished I had died in Hong Kong, because maybe everyone would have been better off without me."

Touya was aghast. "Does Yue know about this?" He could not imagine how hurt Yue would have been.

" _Iie,_ it became moot point after Eriol gave me his powers and Yue chose to leave Clow's legacy. But it's a million times worse for this Syaoran,  _and_ he doesn't have any of the things I have." Syaoran was still rubbing his abdomen. "Given how stupid teenagers are, he might try to kill himself."

"You had suicidal ideations when you were  _ten_?!" Touya wanted to scream.

"I had suicidal ideations when I was five," Syaoran admitted blithely. "If it weren't for the fact that I was terrified of my captors and didn't exactly have time to think about this, well,"

"You had suicidal ideations when you were  _five?!_ " How the  _fuck_ did Touya get mixed up in psychiatry all of the sudden? "Does Yue know about this?"

"Of course not, I'm not  _stupid_ ," Syaoran made a face.

" _Kami-sama._ " It was Touya's turn to bury his face in his hands.

"In any case," he heard Syaoran tell the others, as if he had been talking about the weather and not about how he had wanted to kill himself as a child, "I'm mentioning this to give you an idea of what to expect, based on what I know about him and what I know about myself. He's an orphan and it sounds like he's an orphan from the start. Someone who potentially could have spared everyone a lot of trouble, if he didn't exist. He has no family and he has a love who is also a princess and can select any man she wants and it doesn't have to be him. People like us have a hard time retaining our self-respect as it is. When our dignity gets violated like that…he's going to need a lot of support, to say the least. I'm not even sure if bringing his parents back would help. It likely wouldn't, considering how mixed up everything is. It's going to be a mess, so if you have things to do, I can ask Yue to take care of him here, we'll figure out the issue with his parents and send him home to his Sakura for whatever comes next, but you two don't need to stay."

"You're being very insulting," said Kurogane.

" _Gomen ne,_ " Syaoran said, tones still rather placid, "but I know that he wouldn't have wanted to be a bother. He's going to be a huge bother."

"If you keep going on that vein," said the ninja, "I'm going to punch you in your stupid face."

"Why  _are_ you two following him?" Syaoran asked, sounding not the least bit intimidated; probably because of Eriol's donated magic. Ever since getting the boost, Syaoran had become more confident. "What are you two to him? What is he to you? I don't understand. He gets hurt this badly and neither of you sense it—you don't have magic but you have more magic than I have felt in a  _very_ long time and it takes you hours to locate him?"

Touya raised his head and wanted to throw something at the boy— _Seriously?_ Touya was a surgeon and even he was more sensitive than this.

Fay laughed, to everyone's surprise.

"You're right," he said softly. "I knew better, but…it's easier to blame him…for…everything. I don't think I ever stopped. I don't know if Kurogane ever stopped. He was always there, in our faces, a reminder of everything we had lost, and unfinished business."

A silence fell again.

"But…" Fay's lower lip quivered, and tears spilled from the older sorcerer's eyes, "I wanted…to give him a happy ending. Despite everything, I wanted…because I knew if he had one, so would I. Selfish, I know, but…I did want him to be happy. To find happiness. It was what I wanted above all else. I never…"

Kurogane said nothing.

Touya looked at Syaoran and thought of how he must appear to these two: a vision of a would-have-been, a should-have-been. A tantalizing image of something they could never have. Syaoran, in turn, looked profoundly bemused. There was a lot they did not say, but he did not seem able to piece them together himself.

"I'll give Eriol a call," he said at last. "We'll start there."

"Who's Eriol?" Kurogane asked.

"Clow Reed," Syaoran replied. "At the very least, he should be interested in helping his descendant." He smiled encouragingly. "He was before."

* * *

Touya learned later that Syaoran's interrogation session had been Eriol's fault.

 _"The business with Yuuko was not one of the memories I retained,"_ Eriol explained to him.  _"And I was not keeping track of everything that was going on in other dimensions; that's a little bit of a tall order, even for me. This child that they brought to our world clearly needs our help, but I don't know what kind. Considering how he had suffered, I wanted to make sure he didn't need to be saved from his companions. Syaoran agreed to act on my behalf should the opportunity present itself."_

"You're a manipulative son of a bitch, you know that?"

 _"I plead guilty,"_ Eriol stated,  _"but I care about Syaoran, in any form, by any name."_

That part, Touya knew, was true.

"Are there other Yue's and Kero's? Other Syaoran's who might be evil overlords?"

Eriol laughed.  _"Yue and Cerberus are unique. They don't exist in any other reality. As for Syaoran, there might be, though a person's character tends to remain fundamentally consistent across dimensions, as they all share the same soul."_

Right. Touya could not understand that at all.

_"If he is an evil overlord, likely something happened to twist him in that direction, either due to societal norms or a cognitive misunderstanding of morality."_

Nope. Not at all.

"Is there a way to save that kid's parents?"

 _"Creating bodies won't be an issue, nor would infusing them with memories,"_ said Eriol, confirming what Syaoran said.  _"I do not have the ability to do this myself, but with Syaoran's help, together we are even more powerful than Clow Reed was. If Syaoran feels this is the appropriate course of action, I trust his judgment."_ It said a lot, given what they had learned about Clow Reed, and Touya was struck with the new insight that Eriol was  _very_ generous when he had given half of his magic to Syaoran instead of to his other self; it really spoke of his faith in the boy.  _"The trouble is, memories need vessels to store. If his brain has been damaged, those memories might be missing."_

"Yue said he's not with it. How he even knows is beyond me."

_"If Yue says so, then he's not. Yue's love for that child is on a spiritual level. If he encounters any Syaoran, he would recognize him and react accordingly. Whether other Syaoran's reciprocate is a different story, though they would likely respond to him just because he knows them so well."_

"So he's not with it." Touya sighed. Fuck neurosurgery; draining the brain and then signing off because they did all they could anyway, who cares what happens after. "What if we can't help him? What then? Do we just send them on their way?"

_"I don't know, actually. I would ask Syaoran what he would want."_

"He essentially told everyone that he would prefer to be dead."

Eriol was quiet for a long time.  _"I was afraid he would say that, but I'm not surprised. We'll cross that bridge when we get there."_

Motherfucker. Touya hung up feeling even worse than when he started. Dealing with Clow Reed was  _never_ a good idea. One would think he should have learned this by now.

He got a text from Syaoran. It was a photo of a beautiful white cat, with entrancing blue eyes. 

_-Oni-san, I think I found you a wife.-_

" _Gaki,"_ Touya exclaimed, tucking the phone away.

At least some things stayed normal.


	4. In Which Touya Gives Yue a Train-Wreck

Once Tsubasa was off the unit, he was not Touya's to worry about until discharge, when Yue pointed out the real problem of where this child was supposed to go. Normally, after major trauma surgery and a prolonged stay in the ICU, something like rehabilitation would be in order as well, but Tsubasa did not exist on this planet and therefore had neither the rights to Japan's public healthcare nor the money to pay for it out of pocket.

Touya had been distracted by this new anesthesiologist; the department recently hired her for their staff, and she was a cute, pretty little thing, with large manga-sized eyes and dimples when she smiled. The surgical staff and residents were all gossiping about her; apparently she could make a mean cabbage roll. Touya liked the idea of having an anesthesiologist for a wife, especially one as hot as she was; they could work together in the OR and she would do what he told her to do, and then afterwards when they get home she could make him cabbage rolls and continue doing what he told her to do. Why surgeons and anesthesiologists do not pair up this way all the time was beyond him. She even seemed kind of receptive to the idea, but Touya was afraid of making any advances given his active involvement with their extra-dimensional visitors (extra-terrestrials? That really put a new meaning on the word 'alien') and as far as he could tell, she had no magic, and would likely not want any part of the bullshit that had become his life right now.

"It figures that the  _gaki_ would be the one cause of all my problems. Again."

"She's too smart to agree to marry you," said Yue. "You're a jerk. Forget about her and help make my place decent. I can't host Syaoran and two full-grown men in this state; they have nowhere to sleep."

"I don't know how making this place decent would help." Someone would have to go in the closet; it was a big closet but he doubted Kurogane or Fay could fit in there. "Why did Eriol allow people to demolish his mansion? That could have been so useful right now."

Tsubasa had lost an alarming amount of weight in the hospital. He was not eating and he was not moving  _and_ he had all those injuries to consider, so by the time he was discharged he was as weak as a newborn infant and extremely gaunt. It really hurt to look at him, with his half-shorn hair and his sunken eyes. Yue carried him; in addition to stamina, the boy also had balance issues, and would topple around like a human Jenga while squinting with an obvious headache whenever they tried to walk him. Supposedly, Tsubasa did speak at some point while on the general floors, but he was generally mute and paid attention only to Yue. It was a dependence that Touya was certain they were going to regret later, but he saw no way out of it right now.

At some point, Syaoran must have transferred the bear and the afghan, because they were in his room. Tsubasa seemed to recognize Sakura's touch or something—possibly because of his magic, Touya realized, because he reached instantly for the bear. Shortly after he hugged the stuffed animal to himself, his expression became very empty. Touya had wanted to forget everything Syaoran had said about how he would feel and react, it made an awful lot of sense. Touya had seen that kind of shame in certain patients, and wished there were no obscure rule about not seeing your alternate self because then he could get Syaoran here to talk to the other-him.

Yue was especially concerned.

"You think you can talk to your psych friends unofficially?" he asked Touya after they put Tsubasa to bed.

"I don't have psych friends."

"You have psych friends. Do you think you can talk to them unofficially."

"They're not my friends. Their notes are so long that I want to kill them as soon as I see them. I just want to know what their fucking recommendations are, not a full-length biography of a patient's childhood and marriage. Sometimes you flip around and the actual relevant remarks are buried in the middle of things and it turns into the world's worst word search. The mere sight of those pages makes me want to put a scalpel in their faces. That's not a way to start any kind of relationship."

"It's unofficial. They wouldn't still need to write notes, would they?"

"I don't know!" Touya grabbed his hair. "But just thinking about it raises my blood pressure."

"What are these 'psych friends'?" Kurogane demanded, but the two of them ignored him.

Yue whacked him on the back of the head. "Quit being thick. I'm really worried about him."

 _Kuso._ This was why Touya had not wanted to get involved in the first place.

"Highly suspicious and breaching doctor-patient boundaries if I just walked up to one of them and asked, 'say, I know someone who was just brutally gang-raped'—"

"He's not going to survive like this, Touya! He might be out of the hospital but he's not going to make it this way. I'm doing my best but I don't know  _what_ to do. I don't even understand this aspect of human behavior—I had to ask your father to talk to Syaoran about sex and that was traumatizing enough for all three of us."

"All five!" Touya exclaimed. That had to be the top of Yue's worst moments as a parent: asking Fujitaka to teach his future son-in-law sex ed, though Touya could not blame him because there really was no way for Yue to know, but Fujitaka, Syaoran, and Yue were not the only ones affected; Touya and Sakura had also been aghast. "Man, we really needed therapy back then. That was  _horrifying_."

"You need to find your psych friends."

"My psych friends aren't going to do anything. They'd prescribe some antidepressants and those take a million years to work. He would have shriveled up long before then. Not to mention he has neuro issues. You can't just curbside something like this. They'd need to do a full evaluation before coming up with whatever management they can and they'd need to  _monitor_ him. How long do you want this kid to stay here, a year? A decade?"

"So what am  _I_ expected to do?" Yue pointed out. "I didn't get a degree in psychiatry."

"At least have him get use to his new environment first," Touya scowled. "And the new food. Maybe he'd be more receptive to your cooking than the hospital chefs."

Yue was silent. Kurogane looked between the two of them.

"I can't go to psych with this. I wouldn't even know how I'd try. I can't explain that he's been hopping dimensions and they're going to want to know about his childhood upbringing, whether or not he had siblings, if he had ever been abused in his home—does getting imprisoned by a blood relative when you're fourteen count as child abuse? And let's not forget the magic in the mix. Where would they even start?"

" _Kami-sama,_ " Yue palmed at his face, defeated.

"Listen," Touya remarked, "You got this.  _Eriol-san_ said that you know him. Just trust your instincts and keep our Syaoran out of the way in case the universes implode or something."

"Fine."

* * *

Work remained busy. With Tsubasa gone, the 'Your Majesty' jokes died down, and the residents started getting on each other's nerves as winter loomed and the weather got cold. For a while, Touya was too preoccupied to worry about Not-Syaoran, and Yue did not go out of his way to keep Touya updated. After a few days of relative normalcy, Touya tried to have a back and forth with that anesthesiologist. Her name was Kawasaki Mei; not related, as it turned out, to Kawasaki Tomisaku, the guy who described Kawasaki disease, which was a bit of a bummer.

After about two weeks, however, Yue phoned Touya while he was in the OR lounge waiting for the residents to finish suturing and wrapping up the case.

"You think you can get off work early today? We need to talk."

" _Kuso._ I don't know, we'll see. I had a cancellation so we're moving my eight-o-clock to five."

He showed up at Yue's. Or at least outside Yue's; the guardian was in the lobby area, curled up on one of the couches.

"How's he doing?" Touya asked, expecting the worst.

"He's eating," Yue stated. "That took a while, but he's now amenable to putting things in his mouth, which he wasn't before. Problem was these headaches and vertigo. He also asked Kurogane to kill him today."

Touya's stomach chose that moment to growl really loudly.

"Damn it."

Tsubasa had difficulty speaking, Yue explained, so it took them some time to figure out how he felt unwell. The head injuries gave him a significant chronic headache that only alleviated somewhat when he was as still as possible. There was no rhyme or reason to the vertigo, but he was chronically nauseated as well. He was sensitive to light, sensitive to sound, and just plain terrified of his own body and what had been done to it. The turning point, however, came when Yue got a phone call from their own Syaoran, who was actually calling from London this time; Syaoran and Eriol were meeting about Tsubasa's parents and had wanted to check in on how Yue and his guests were doing.

"He heard me talk on the phone," Yue said, "and I think he realized that there was another Syaoran here, and his behavior abruptly changed. He wouldn't let me get close to him and tried leaving the house, which didn't work because the vertigo would inevitably hit him before he made it to the front door. He'd push me away the way he pushes Mokona. He became really angry at me. He had a fit; threw his food away and shattered the bowl. He said 'I'm not him, I'm  _me_ ," and kept repeating that over and over again. I eventually called Syaoran because I didn't really understand what was going on. Syaoran said he might have been upset because he felt like an imposter, and he's felt like an imposter before, when his life was stolen from him, and this just pushed him past his limit."

Touya sighed.

"He reached out to Kurogane while I was talking to Syaoran. It was probably the first time he initiated any kind of communication with any of his companions. Then he went ahead and did this."

"What did Kurogane say?"

"He wasn't happy. Told me about this, then stormed out."

Touya paused. "We have an angry ninja currently out and about right now?"

"He didn't bring his sword, if that's what you're worried about."

"Somehow," Touya reflected on Kurogane's profile, "I'm not that reassured."

Yue sighed this time. "We have several issues right now. First of all, his symptoms are intolerable. He feels sick all the time and his head hurts and none of the medicines help. Second, he's kind of right; I do have my own Syaoran, and he's well within his rights to find that inadequate. Their presence here, especially for this length of time, also makes me uneasy. We need to figure out how to address at least one of these."

"I can curbside the neurologists," Touya said thoughtfully. "The thing is, head injuries tend to mess you up. They're serious for a reason; if you can bite a pill and make all the symptoms go away then they wouldn't be a big deal. Even when you don't have something obvious like paralysis or memory loss, you're usually left with these sequelae and in my experience there isn't a consistently good way to get rid of them. His symptoms sound very severe though. Maybe something like meclizine, or something."

" _Arigatou,_ " Yue sighed.

"How are  _you_ doing? You must be exhausted."

"I'm not exhausted. Syaoran is. This child's magic has been very volatile. I've been using Syaoran's to suppress his spells."

"He's been casting magic?"

"Not casting magic, just affecting his surroundings based on his mood and his thoughts. Syaoran assures me that he has a lot of magic to spare, but I know he's been feeling worn down lately." Yue sighed again. "I'm so glad our Syaoran is doing well. I don't know what I would do if such a thing ever happened to him."

"He wouldn't have been stuck for hours with those monsters."

"He has such nightmares, it's been a long time since Syaoran had nightmares like that. Those maniacs toyed with him."

"I know."

"He didn't understand what they wanted from him because Mokona wasn't with him."

"…I know."

"I might need to ask Sakura to use the Dream Card because he hasn't been sleeping all that well."

"I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

Yue covered his face. "What a disaster."

_You're telling me._

"I'll get in touch with neuro, see if they have any off-record advice."

" _Arigatou._ "

"Hang in there," Touya encouraged. "For what it's worth, I think Syaoran's pretty optimistic."

"That's true," Yue agreed. "He would know best." He uncurled and stood. "I have to go back to check on him."

Touya was tempted to call it a day, but something about Yue's expression made him pause.

"Want me to come with?" he asked, regretting this as soon as he offered.

"Sure." Yue paused. "Maybe you can help. He knew you as a king."

_Oh kami._

Tsubasa was curled on the floor against the wall, holding his head. If he had been eating, it did not show. He looked like he had a giant hangover, which was really unfair if one did not get drunk first. Fay and Mokona were on the floor in front of him, Fay sitting on his knees, looking dismayed. The two of them turned when Yue opened the door.

"He won't let me touch him," Fay twisted his hands together.

Touya sighed as Yue swept toward the boy.

"See what I mean?" the guardian murmured as he collected his new charge into his arms. Tsubasa hissed and let out a groan.

"This isn't endurable," Yue turned to Touya.

"I honestly don't know," Touya looked at the wretched figure. Neuro issues really were not his thing. He normally just consulted neuro and did whatever they told him to do. Tsubasa turned his head to look up at Touya. His eyes looked like they were pointing in different directions, and Touya abruptly wanted to gag.

"He needs neuro," said the doctor. "Syaoran, are you seeing double?"

"Is this normal?" Yue asked, "for him to be so sick?"

"I've never seen it," Touya frowned. "I've done this for a while but I haven't seen everything, though." Concerned, he felt the boy's forehead, but he did not feel too hot or too cold. He then picked up the boy's bony wrist to check the pulse. It felt fine. He took out his cell phone to shine the flashlight at the pupils, but Tsubasa keened and squeezed his eyes shut.

"This doesn't feel right. Where's your laptop?"

Fay hovered by Touya anxiously as Touya looked at the CT scans. After draining the epidural, the CT did not really show much, and there was no MRI.

"Has he been like this all this time?" Touya asked Yue, "Or has he gotten worse since his discharge?"

"He never liked light or sound. Most of the time he just wants me to hold him. It's been that way since he was extubated. He doesn't like changing positions, doesn't like anyone touching him, doesn't really like moving."

"And it's been this way all along?" Touya blinked, staring at the CT images even though he was not getting more information from them. "Kind of ballsy of them to just discharge him like this. I would have transferred him to medicine, at least." He checked the labs and vital signs, but there was nothing revealing.

He went back to the boy, who had been placed in his bed. " _Syaoran-kun_ ," he called, taking the boy's hand. "can you tell me what you're feeling now?"

Tsubasa grimaced, opening his eyes. They still looked divergent.  _Kuso. What the hell does that mean?_  He could not be herniating  _now._

Touya placed his hand on the boy's forehead, feeling like an internal medicine doctor, with their love of talking. " _Syaoran-kun,_ I need you to tell me. Are you in pain?"

"Why are you so nice?"

Touya was caught off-guard by how much that hurt, even knowing as he did that his alternate self had been less than close to this boy. Who was not even his Syaoran.

"You're sick," he said after a moment. "Whatever differences we have can wait until you get better."

"…want it to stop."

"Want what to stop?"

Tsubasa squeezed his eyes shut.

"Does it hurt somewhere?"

But Tsubasa turned his face into the pillow and stopped responding to him.

* * *

After some thought, Touya called London first.

"The trouble is if this is a magical thing," he explained. "Fay and Kurogane said that the world they escaped from was filled with magic-users. It could just be because his brain got battered; I'm not a neurologist, obviously, but given the situation, it would be more helpful if I could speak to a neurologist who's also a sorcerer."

 _"I have a name for you,"_ Eriol replied,  _"She's not a neurologist, she's actually an ophthalmologist, but she might know people. Drop my name and she'll help you."_

A few calls later, which had Touya flashing back to his residency years, he finally landed on a Dr. Wilson, who was actually practicing somewhere in Ireland. Touya's English was atrocious and the man's Irish accent made his head spin, but he at least got the message across that he was a doctor and that as doctors they needed to communicate about a patient.

 _"That's terrible,"_ said Wilson.  _"the poor child! The CTs were negative, I presume? Ya, they're always negative in cases like these. Hm."_ And then, because he was a neurologist and neurologists loved to sound smart, he started rattling off all these studies and their findings.  _"Ultimately,"_ he explained,  _"it doesn't have to be magical; TBI's tend to leave severe disabilities, though generally this depends on factors like age, whether there was anoxic injury in addition to the trauma, whether there was elevated intracranial pressure…_ _"_ He told Touya about certain options that might help, but they generally needed monitoring, which Tsubasa would not be able to cooperate with. Touya hung up, filled with defeat and a lot of ungenerous thoughts about neurology as a whole. What a fucking joke of a field, no surgery and all this talking.

No vessel, no memory. Nothing to save.

Kurogane came back, and headed straight for Touya when he realized the doctor was present.

"You need to help that boy," said the warrior.

"I don't think I can," Touya admitted. "I've done all I could. I just spent three hours calling around. Trouble is, with his injuries it's frankly a miracle he's even out of the hospital like this, and he's…he died twice. The fact that he's even awake—I mean, our management can keep a lot of poor souls breathing and ticking, but we're not so good with managing stuff like vertigo and chronic pain."

Kurogane stared at him. "There has to be another way. If it can't be found in this world, we'll search elsewhere."

Touya felt like a failure.  _"Gomen nasai._ " He could ask Yue to bring the boy back to the emergency department. The doctors there would not appreciate this, but it might be worth a separate workup.

Kurogane turned from him. "We won't give up on him, even if he gives up on himself."

"Good," said Touya, but as the ninja walked away from him, he added, "Bear in mind, however,"

Kurogane stopped.

"Don't impose your wishes over his," said the surgeon. "In the end, do as his parents would."

Kurogane whirled around. "You think his real parents would choose to let him  _die?_ "

"I've seen a lot of things in a short period of time," said Touya. "Death is not so strange to me. We all meet it. As much as it may be in our nature to wish to live, there are times when that is not appropriate. Remember, you do not feel his pain. You do not feel his suffering. Take care not to force him through shit just because of your own demons."

The ninja loomed, which was just a tad terrifying. "I've  _killed_ people, Doctor. Don't assume death is strange to me either."

"Good. Then we're on the same page."

Kurogane glared, looking like he had a lot of words to say, but after brewing for a while, he ultimately just turned around and left, perhaps to join Fay and Yue in watching over Tsubasa.

Touya glanced at the clock.  _Fuck_. He should have left Yue in the lobby when he had the chance.

* * *

Yue, per Touya's suggestion, did bring the boy back to the hospital, but after spending about eight hours there, the workup was negative. They subjected Tsubasa to a whole variety of tests, this time including a lumbar puncture, which Tsubasa barely tolerated and Touya was not sure was the best idea, and an MRI of the head, which really blew Touya's mind because those things take forever to get and required such exchanges as offering one's firstborn and a lifetime's worth of cocaine. It was all for naught though, other than making Tsubasa even more upset than before. He went back to refusing food, to the point where Yue wondered if Touya might have to slip in a PICC line to feed him intravenously.

Things got bad enough that Eriol flew in from London that weekend to take a look for himself. He had made for a creepy child (well, man inside a child. Manchild. Eriol did not make sense all around) and as a young adult he retained that creepiness with the added bonus of being even more British than before. Tsubasa had gotten extra irritable but no more verbal than he had been. He grew incredibly irate when Eriol had to touch him to examine him, and was so upset that several fires started spontaneously in the building.

"He got hurt magically too," Eriol was able to uncover. "They kept snuffing him out when he struggled, slamming him with disorientation spells. His whole spirit is now off-frequency with his body and his magic. Time will tell if they realign. As for his mind, I do not sense another set of memories. His own, I think, are intact. For the most part."

"So it's hopeless, then?" Kurogane demanded.

Eriol sighed. "What brought you here, little one? Of all the realities, did you come here for me? Did you come here for Yue? What are we supposed to do for you?" He rubbed his chin and regarded the boy with profound sadness.

"You are Clow Reed," Fay whispered. "Your Syaoran said so. Can't you help him?"

"I was Clow Reed once upon a time," Eriol said slowly. "As you surely understand, even Clow Reed could not do everything, and I had used his powers to help the Syaoran here. I don't know what I can do for yours."

"Then we'll take him elsewhere," Kurogane decided. "You've done what you could. Other worlds have other forms of magic, other rules, other methods."

Fay just covered his face.

"No world can solve something only time can cure," Eriol warned. "He hurts if he moves. I wouldn't subject him to the stress of traveling to realms that might be as dangerous as the one you just left. I can guarantee that one reason this is the world you've come to is because it is relatively safe. There is no active war in Japan, there are sorcerers here willing to help you and offer you shelter, and there is Yue." Eriol looked at the guardian. "I wonder if, across dimensions, our Syaoran is the only one with an authentic parent."

Touya rubbed his face. That was a troubling thought, though far beyond anything they could worry about at this point.

"Has this sort of thing ever happened before?" Yue asked.

"Of course it has," said Eriol. "Even in Clow's time. Men were not shy about torture."

"Can't we do anything at all?" Touya asked.

"They're often lost causes," Eriol said heavily. "It's regarded as a kindness to just let them go. Even when they have recovery, it's minimal and inadequate."

Kurogane turned away, grabbing at his head. "And that damn dimension witch is dead."

Eriol looked at him. "Wishes caused all your problems."

Kurogane folded his arms and looked over at the boy, who was curling up into a fetal position and covering his ears.

"How much time do we have?" asked the ninja.

"How long does it take to starve to death?" Eriol looked at Touya.

Touya thought about potentially putting in a PEG tube, but he doubted Tsubasa would tolerate that. He might try to rip the thing out.  _Damn it._

Eriol reached out to touch Tsubasa's shoulder. The boy whimpered.

"My brave boy," the sorcerer murmured. "Don't give up yet. Fate brought you here for a reason. It can't be so that I'll watch you die. Hold on tight, and we'll do the rest, alright?"

"No…" Tsubasa keened, and his face contorted as a tear leaked from his left eye.

"Syaoran—"

"Make it stop.  _Please._ Make it all stop."

Kurogane turned away at this.

Eriol reached both hands out and splayed them over his forehead and chest. "Alright. Stop for a while."

Tsubasa suddenly went limp.

Fay lunged forward. "What did you do?!"

"I just put him to sleep."

The fair-haired sorcerer still bent over the boy to check on him.

"Can you teach  _me_ that trick?" Touya asked.

"Generally not advisable; it's not normal sleep. I essentially put him in a coma," Eriol admitted, "but he really needed a rest, in some form." He paused as Fay straightened. "Hm. I just spoke with our own Syaoran, but it's really hard to look at him."

"Can't you prescribe something stronger for the pain, at least?" Yue asked. "The ones he was discharged with don't seem to be helping."

"I would. Nothing medical is stopping me. He's in enough pain to justify it. But who would I prescribe them for? Li Tsubasa has no record. He doesn't have any form of identification. Pharmacies won't dispense the medication and I'd get an inquiry."

"…So there really isn't anything we can do?" the guardian stared.

Eriol raised his hand to beckon at Yue and Touya. "Come with me."

They relocated to Yue's room and Eriol shut the door.

"There's only one way I can think of right now that might help that boy."

"What's that?"

"Have him merge with our Syaoran."

"Not a chance," Yue snapped.

Eriol raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Not suggesting we should, but it might be what these events are leading up to—"

"There is no way I'm letting my son near him," Yue exclaimed. "I realize they're the same person but I am  _not_ subjecting Syaoran to whatever horrors this child faced. And you will  _not_ bring that up with him or I will never forgive you."

Eriol bowed his head. "I told him to stay away as well. I promise I won't bring this up."

"He might consider it," Touya said disapprovingly.

"He might already be considering it, for all we know. Syaoran's a smart child."

Yue grabbed his face, looking more distressed than he had ever been with Tsubasa. "He won't. He  _knows_ what that would do to me." He was not referring to the threat to the magical bond. "I raised that boy as my own for the last  _eighteen_ _years_. He won't do that to me."

"I know," Eriol said solemnly. "I'll do what I can to maintain their integrity. But I don't know what else we can do." He sighed. "It was so hard to look at him."

 _When the reincarnation of Clow Reed doesn't know what to do,_ Touya mused,  _we're fucked._

"He's likely going to die, isn't he?" he remarked.

Eriol remained silent.

* * *

Kurogane left when the three of them exited Yue's room. Touya headed out later, since he had other things to do. He found the ninja in front of the building, standing outside the doors, watching the cars go past.

"Oi," said Touya, " _Daijoubu desu ka?_ "

" _I'm_ fine," Kurogane grumbled, looking anything but, despite a solid attempt at looking composed.

 _Fuck me. Introspective ninjas._ What was his life? Touya sighed and went over to join him for a bit.

"At least he's getting a break from all of that right now."

Kurogane inhaled. "I had liked him almost immediately. He was…unassuming. But I could tell he was strong. And reasonably kind. He never expected anyone to make things easier for him. Never tried to take the easy way out. Gave without expecting anything in return. I thought, this boy is brave, loyal, and  _good_. He would have made a great warrior for Princess Tomoyo. At the time, all I wanted was to go home, but then as I got to know him, his quest became important to me too. Some part of me believed that if I helped him fulfill his, I would also fulfill mine. But then he turned out to be a clone." A tone of utter disbelief wove into his voice. "He hurt Fay. Stole his eye, and his magic. Left Fay dying from pain and shock. This new Syaoran comes along and just…took his place. He was similar, and yet different. He had gone through different experiences. That bastard, Fei Wong Reed. And for some time, even though he was familiar, and I knew that everything I had liked about the clone was also present in him, since he gave that clone his soul, his heart—I didn't know what to do about him. Fay was hurt, also on the inside, and he probably also wondered if this Syaoran would turn around and do the same. And same thing: never looked for the easy way out. He was willing to suffer the consequences of actions he did not even commit, to take responsibility for things he didn't do. He knew everything the clone knew about us but we didn't know him in return. This stranger with a familiar face. I tried, Fay tried, but we couldn't make it better than we did. Knew he had been lonely and scared for many years, at the mercy of that maniac, but we couldn't give him what he saw us give his clone. And he didn't ask. Eventually…eventually we came around. Fay got his magic back, as well as his eye. I was allowed to go home. But after all of that, Syaoran loses his parents. The other you wasn't a huge fan, either, and Fay and I had a discussion…we both got what we wanted but Syaoran's all alone in the world."

"Didn't he have Sakura?"

"Well, just like your brother-in-law said; he's a nobody. She's a princess. He wouldn't feel good enough for her. Didn't. He never presumed to deserve her. We never presumed she deserved him." Kurogane paused. "I use to have a short temper. One reason I was cast out by Princess Tomoyo was because I was violent and angry. There were all these assassin's after her, and I was furious that they would dare to try to hurt her. I showed no mercy, even after she begged me. But even then, I knew that there was a difference between a short, quick death and a long painful one. Had seen such things, on the road. Syaoran…never took the easy way out. He always endured. Suffered in silence. He would rather suffer the pain than inflict it on others. He chose me on purpose. He thought I would find it easy."

He looked angry. Touya was reasonably brave, considering his job, but he had to fight to not cringe away from the ninja just then.

"When did I become so weak?" Kurogane muttered, half in wonder.

"As a doctor," Touya replied, "generally I don't advocate outright killing. Allowing natural death,  _hai_ , but outright execution, not one of my recommendations, though euthanasia's sort of a controversial subject among those in our field. Certainly, if you are in his company, I would hope you do have some kind of moral code where you only kill shitheads who deserve it. Tsubasa clearly does not. I wouldn't worry about your manliness."

Kurogane snorted in contempt, looking as if he were very bothered by something in particular. "I keep thinking about your Syaoran, and how all of you are with him. We never treated him like a child, even though we knew he was one. We would allow him to make decisions without any attempt at counsel, and then watch as he accepted the consequences without any feeling of obligation. Part of it was that neither Fay nor I felt we were equipped to advise anyone, but part of it  _was_ that we didn't feel responsible for him. We all had our own problems to worry about. I was always relieved that he wasn't a needy child and a burden on us. But he  _had_ needs, and he  _was_ a child, and those—" he said something that did not translate "—attacked him because he was a child."

 _Well, I wouldn't expect a ninja to be a great at life advice,_ Touya thought wryly. He had no idea about Fay, but the sorcerer clearly had issues.

These three were just not meant to be good news.

"The trouble with teenagers," said the doctor, "is that they do have to make their own decisions, even if they suck at it.  _Especially_ because they suck at it. But in this case, it's not poor decision-making that led to what happened. From the sounds of it, Tsubasa just ran into some bad people. Thing about bad people is sometimes you just can't avoid them. Thing about tragedies, too, is that sometimes they're inevitable. You're not this kid's father. You're not this kid's anything. He didn't expect you to cuddle him and you certainly didn't either. So you didn't cuddle him and now we're here, watching Yue who has a ton of experience cuddling Syaoran. He's missed it, ever since the  _gaki_ got older. So it's just as well that you folks came here. But Yue made the choice to adopt Syaoran a long time ago. He made the choice to be good at being his father. Naturally, he's good at taking care of him. This isn't a competition. We all know you each had your own shit to deal with."

"He  _is_ important to me. And to Fay." Kurogane clenched his jaw. "We put our own lives on hold to help him get his parents back. So stupid. He wanted his parents back. Somehow it didn't occur to us that he needed them."

"Well," Touya nodded his head, "to be fair, if anything happened to my  _Otou-san_ , I'd want him back. And I'm thirty."

Kurogane ignored him. "I can't just kill him like…like an enemy. He's a child." He looked toward the lobby doors. "He hasn't even finished  _growing_ yet."

After all of that,  _this_ was what his crisis was all about?

"I don't get this because I actually save lives, but some of my colleagues get questions about euthanasia," Touya saw one very hot-pink bicycle speed past. The rider was a dude.  _Jackass._ He hated people who went against the norm just to make themselves feel special. "He's really suffering now. Those headaches are mean business, and there's nothing that really epitomizes the feeling of being 'sick' like nausea, which goes with vertigo, which makes it impossible to do  _anything._ People have totally killed themselves because of intractable symptoms like this. But the manner of death is important. It's not something you ask an enemy to help you with."

Kurogane made a sound that was between a spit and a sigh.

"Anyway, he's in a coma. We'll brainstorm and see if there's something we can try."

"I'd prefer death," Kurogane said in a low voice. "If I can't even stand straight, can barely talk. He's a waste of a human being."

"Right."  _Fucker._ Abruptly, Touya was done with this whole shit. These guys weren't even from the same dimension. Why the fuck was this his problem? "I mean, whatever, man." He pushed away from the wall to start homeward. "Tsubasa certainly doesn't seem to expect anything from you."

 


	5. In Which Touya's Efforts Come to Naught

Touya went out on a date with Dr. Kawasaki. It was a disaster, because she ended up being really boring. He went to the semi-annual meeting where the staff evaluated the residents. He went drinking with the Whipple Man (what happens in the OR stays in the OR) as well as one of the breast surgeons, a droll woman who Touya felt he should like, but just rubbed him the wrong way. Orthopedics and urology had a tiff about the OR rooms (ortho was upset that urology got the nicer rooms at the east wing) and everyone ended up getting bumped from their original rooms "just to change things up". People were assholes, and life was normal.

Meanwhile, Tsubasa finally reached a breaking point where his poor food intake necessitated a trip and an admission to the hospital for that alone. Supposedly, he was one of those patients that had residents and nurses wanting to slit their wrists at the mere thought of having to see him, because he did not like being touched, would not answer questions and was generally uncooperative. The medicine staff, Ichibana, who was actually a good friend of Touya's, told him that the boy did not look good.

"The problem is the support," he explained. "He doesn't have access to any of the services. He really needs to go back to his own country."

"Do you think a PEG tube is indicated?"

"If he'd leave it alone. But he hates the nasogastric tube."

"Everyone hates the nasogastric tube." It was a tube up the nose. One of the procedures Touya hates the most is shoving one of those things up someone who did not know what the hell was happening. "I'm surprised he's tolerating it."

"He isn't. We had to replace it twice already and he's already pulled it out again. We got some feed in him so we're leaving him alone for now. If he leaves it alone, it shouldn't do any harm, and we can always remove it later when his status improves, but something about him makes me very hesitant. I don't think he'd leave the tube alone. And I don't know why he's not eating; we tried giving him some ondansetron in case he's been nauseated but that hasn't helped. It shouldn't be due to pain either; there's no reason for him to have pain. I asked GI to take a look and see if maybe they can do an endoscopy, see if maybe there's something organic that's causing his behavior."

"Have you consulted psych, by any chance?"

"Psych and neuro. They left some recs. Meclizine for the vertigo, Amitryptiline for the headaches and possible PTSD. It's taking a while to show any effect, however. I'm surprised he wasn't already put on those."

"I'm…honestly surprised too. They never consulted psych on his last admission."

"It's tough getting anything out of him though. He's very uncooperative."

Touya learned when he whisked by the cafeteria for a quick snack that they were going to place a PEG tube after all, and it was scheduled for the next day. What they did not count on was how much Tsubasa hated the idea before it was even implemented. He somehow learned about this, and Touya was in the middle of resecting some ischemic bowel when he felt magic suddenly start getting thrown around. He planted himself firmly in the OR, determined not to deal with this bullshit, because he still had cases he had to do and who knows how long Tsubasa's shenanigans were going to last. At the end of the day, at around ten in the evening, he finally guilted himself enough to trudge over to the medicine wards, where he found Eriol sitting near the boy who was weeping inconsolably.

"I want to go home!"

"We can't take you home until you start eating or we put that tube in," Eriol stated in a calm voice.

"No!"

Awkward. Touya stepped out to check Tsubasa's chart. GI left an addendum, stating that due to familial indecision, they were going to postpone the PEG tube placement. Psych and neuro also left notes, noting that the medications did not seem to be working at their current doses.

He strode back into the room. The roommates were all rolling around, trying their best to ignore Tsubasa's crying.

"I have no home," he whimpered.

"Of course you have a home," Eriol said gently. " _Sakura-hime_ is waiting for you."

"No!"

Eriol looked up at Touya, before looking back down at the boy again. "Why not, Tsubasa?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"No!"

"This isn't getting anywhere," Kurogane sighed.

Touya strode forward, startling the boy; it seemed like Tsubasa had not realized he was there. He bent down and stretched his hand out to place it on his shoulder.

" _Ototo-san,_ " he said softly.

Tsubasa shut up. Touya had that brief moment of triumph, similar to that feeling pediatricians get when they transform a monster child into a little angel just by walking into the room. "Sakura would want you to get better, as would I."

"You're not King Touya," Tsubasa said bitterly.

" _Iie,_ " Touya acknowledged, "but I don't think he and I are all that different, and she and my  _imouto_ wouldn't be different either."

"I'm bad." Tsubasa suddenly scratched down his left forearm with his right nails. Blood welled from the tracks.

 _Fuck._ Touya waved at Eriol to grab some tissues. That arm already had enough marks as it was. Yue stepped forward to help with that, and Touya let him; he did not want to break away just to grab gloves so that he did not have to touch Tsubasa's blood. Tsubasa tried to scratch again, and Touya caught his wrist.

"Stop—don't do that. You're not bad. You're a good kid."

"Syaoran," Fay whispered behind Touya.

"No Sakura," Tsubasa shook his head, and went a little green. "Die."

" _Iie,_ " Touya objected. "She would be heartbroken."

"No Sakura."

"She'd want you no matter how you are."

"No. Bad." Tsubasa looked up at Touya and Touya literally saw his eyes slide apart from one another. "Sick."

"You are. We're trying to get you better. You need to give us a chance."

"Never," the boy sobbed, and more tears spilled down his cheeks. "No home. No one. No Sakura. Bad. Die. Please." He swallowed again, looking like he might retch and craned his neck toward Kurogane. "Please."

" _Iie,_ Tsubasa," Touya tried, "I've looked inside you." Literally. "You're as good as new." Minus some parts of his colon and maybe some brain function. "Sakura would want you. You can go home. There are people who love you."  _I hope._

 _"Noo,"_ the boy keened, "Bad now. Feel it. Please." He shook his head. "I can't. Kurogane, please."

Mokona hopped on the bed. The fluffball was also crying. "No, Syaoran! Don't say that! Don't ask that of him. You're good. Mokona knows you're good, can feel it, and so will Sakura! Listen to Dr. Kinomoto!"

Tsubasa was exhausted, and his weeping faded to feeble hiccups. Eriol and Touya left the room to head out into the hall.

"Sakura was asking if she could just erase his memory," Eriol sighed, "but that would mess things up even more, given everything had gotten knocked off its axis; his brain, his magic, his body."

Death by depression. This had to be the first time Touya saw a case that was so direct. He thought going into surgery was supposed to keep him out of situations like this.

"There's nothing you can do?"

"I fixed his guts," said Touya. "Neurosurg drained his brain. The rest is up to him. Often times, such is the case."

Eriol went back to the room. Touya went home. He had to get up at fucking four in the morning.

* * *

Eriol stayed in the hospital with Mokona, Kurogane, Fay, and Yue. Tsubasa continued to express distress whenever the PEG tube was brought up. He started ripping his lines out, scratching himself, as if trying to scrape all of his skin off. None of the medications worked, leading to the medicine residents ordering restraints. Yue's soothing influence in the first admission did not seem to carry over, and things got ugly very quickly. Psychiatry and neurology got into an argument about whether this was more of a psych issue or a neuro issue; medicine wanted to turf him off their service, because his electrolytes were fixed and he was 'no longer a medicine patient', but did not know where he should go, and it became a three-way battle where no one wanted to be his primary caretakers because everyone was convinced the problem had nothing to do with their specialty.

The poor first year medicine resident was stuck trying to coordinate everything. Touya went by their workstation partially to watch the spectacle of the miserable girl calling neuro, calling psych, reporting to her supervising resident, then to her staff, then back to neuro, then psych, and then the supervising resident. It was a little surreal, how one patient could occupy so much time. General surgery had also been a dumping ground of sorts for patients no one wanted, but it was not quite this bad; usually if patients were this fucked up, then the surgeons would just dump on the internal medicine service. It made him feel kind of gleeful, watching her suffer, even though this business also meant that nothing was being done for Tsubasa and everyone was just sitting on their asses waiting for someone to make a decision.

Ah, medicine people. They suck.

Ultimately, it was Sakura who calmed things down a bit. She had a test to study for, but afterwards came by the hospital with Syaoran's favorite dishes:  _shumai_ and  _ha gow_ , something she had learned to make for Syaoran ever since he started missing  _dim sum_. She also brought chocolate; she would have been remiss if she forgot that. They were not sure if Tsubasa would be very receptive, considering there was no "Hong Kong" where he came from, but it turned out she probably could have brought dry seaweed mixed with jalapeños, because Tsubasa instantly froze upon the sight of her.

He did not seem to remember seeing her before. It was hard to tell if he was happy to see her or even more upset than he already was.

"I brought some things for you to try," she told him, taking out the dim sum, which she had heated up in a microwave in the pantry prior to entering the room. "I think you will like this. Smells good, hm?"

"Princess," Tsubasa whispered, looking down. Tears streamed from his eyes; as long as he had the normal saline going in, he had enough hydration to produce tears. He looked away from the  _shu mai_.

Sakura set the food aside and bent forward to touch her forehead against his and stroked his cheek with her fingers. " _Syaoran-kun_ ," she said tenderly, "I see you still."

He yanked his head violently away from her. His restraints kept him from going far, and his body seized, trembling.

"No," he whispered, "don't."

" _Syaoran-kun?"_

He yanked his head away and sobbed. "I'm sorry. Sorry. Wasn't good enough. No!" he cried out when Sakura touched his face. "No!"

" _Syaoran-kun,_ it's just me."

He shook his head and choked. "No. Will ruin you. Please. No."

"Ruin me?"

"Ruined  _me!_ " he cried out, and then in a high-pitched whisper, full of horror, "They were inside me. They are. Feel it. Poison." He yanked at his restraints again and sobbed. "I love you. I love you. No."

Touya pressed his knuckles to his forehead so that he would not punch something and scare the kid. Sakura turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, before turning back and leaning forward. He tried to dodge her, but she kissed his cheek, then his temple, then his forehead. He yanked at his restraints and keened.

"Shh," she soothed. "Nothing is ruined. You are still  _Syaoran-kun_ , and you are beautiful to me. Don't do this, love. If it were me, hurting, and those monsters inside me, would you want me to stay away?"

Tsubasa's eyes grew wide, and he looked impossibly frightened. "No. No no no no no."

If there were any doubts about the depths of his love, only a blind man would still hold onto them.

"I'm waiting for you to come home. Does not matter how you are, as long as you come home to me. This face will grow old. These arms will grow frail. These legs will grow weak," and she touched his thighs, which would normally freak Tsubasa out, but he tolerated this with a wide-eyed expression. "All the things those monsters took from you are things that we lose in time anyway. In the end, our flesh turns to dust, and even our names get lost in time. But this, here," she pressed her hand to Tsubasa's heart again, "they cannot touch that. Only you can. And she loves this, here. She's waiting for it to come back to her.  _Syaoran-kun._ Let's get you back to her, hm?"

Touya glanced at Fay, Kurogane, and Mokona. He hoped Sakura's other self loved Tsubasa as much as his sister loved Syaoran, because this was a promise that hinged on a ton of assumptions, here. But they just looked hopeful, and not at all worried that their princess might not deliver.

Tsubasa still wept, and Sakura collected him in her arms. His body went limp. Perhaps this was what he had needed all along; some kind of reassurance that the person he cared most about would not reject him. But even so, this was not quite enough.

"You're not her!" he cried. "You don't know! I can't!"

"I am her," Sakura said calmly. "I am her as she might have been. My heart belongs to you, in any world. I speak for her now, when she cannot speak for herself.  _Aishiteru, Syaoran-kun._ Always."

She cradled him for a long time before letting him go. He was still restrained, and she did not move to remove them, but she fed him the  _shu mai_ and  _ha gow_ , which he accepted. He could not eat very much; his stomach had shrunken over the prolonged fast, so she boxed the rest and left it on the side table.

"Hurts," he said miserably, tears still pouring down.

"Where?" she asked.

"Head hurts."

She scooted her chair forward and raised her hands to his head. "I'll make it go away. Close your eyes."

She massaged his head and his neck, his shoulders and his arms. She seemed to have had practice. She must have done this for Syaoran too. At the end of it, Tsubasa actually looked comfortable for the first time Touya had seen him. Even when sedated and intubated, he did not look quite this relaxed.

Sakura stayed with Tsubasa until late in the evening when she had to go home to get some sleep. She gave Tsubasa a hug before she left and tucked him in her afghan.

"I'm not him," he said to her.

She brushed her fingers at his forehead. "You are the same," she said. "I know you. And you know me. I am not a clone, and neither are you. We are ourselves and we are the same where it counts. So trust me when I say, you are beautiful to me, and you will still be beautiful to her. That's a promise."

Eriol left with her, offering to walk her home. Touya, who was on call, decided to hang around the patient room instead of going to the on-call room; he could stalk the lab reports, but he had residents for that. Yue got into bed with Tsubasa to hold him; Tsubasa seemed to require this, for some reason.

About half an hour later, the boy suddenly retched. Yue barely had enough time to grab a plastic basin, and out came all of Sakura's efforts.

"What happened?" Touya exclaimed.

"Sorry," Tsubasa whimpered helplessly, and made a visible effort to stop his heaves, but more of the  _dim sum_ came out, leaving him shuddering and weak. He continued retching for a good ten minutes without bringing anything up, before slumping against Yue, moaning in pain and exhaustion.

 _Kami._ It was like watching an oncology inpatient.

"Dim sum might have been a little too heavy," Yue looked up at Touya.

"Probably."

"Sorry," Tsubasa whimpered. Yue hushed him.

"The ondansetron really did nothing, huh," Touya frowned. "Did Eriol mention any possible reasons why he might be resistant?"

" _Iie._ "

Fay looked at Touya. "What do we do now?"

"We give him a break and another try in the morning." Touya's pager went off: new patient in the emergency department trauma bay, SICU consult. "Got to go."

After seeing the consult, he came back to check on everyone. Tsubasa was asleep, but he started having a nightmare shortly before Touya entered the room. Yue was trying to soothe him without actually waking him up.

"No," the boy sobbed, voice small and childlike. "Please. Help—Kurogane, Fay, please—"

"Shh," Yue cradled his face. "You're safe, Syaoran."

"Fay, Kurogane, help, please, help, help—" he choked, and Yue pressed a hand over his forehead.

"Shhhhh," the guardian hushed him.

Touya turned to look at Kurogane and Fay, with Mokona sitting forlornly at the window. Both men watched Yue with the boy with inscrutable expressions.

 _Fuck_. That could not be easy to watch. Touya wondered if they had listened to Tsubasa cry to them for help on the last admission too.  _This royally sucks._ It had to have happened though. The boy was tortured for hours; at some point he would have had to beg for mercy or deliverance. Still different to hear it.

"Yue," Tsubasa whispered, indicating that he woke anyway.

"You're safe."

"Sick."

He had nothing more to vomit up, but the nausea kept him up all night. Touya eventually had to go back to the emergency room for another consult, and did not get a chance to return for the rest of the night, because another nec fasc patient was getting transferred from the general floors—disaster cases like this never come individually, and this and that, some drunk that misjudged the distance while climbing a building, and before long it was time to round in the SICU.

When Touya checked the charts at around noon, Tsubasa had vomited his breakfast—clear liquids this time, so the PEG tube issue was brought up yet again, with Tsubasa freaking out because he was horrified enough by his own body as it was, and to poke a hole in his stomach for a tube to go in was something he could not bear. The poor medicine resident got embroiled in a debate with psychiatry and gastroenterology about whether the mental distress of having a PEG tube superseded the medical need for one. Neuro questioned whether Tsubasa's headache and vertigo were organic at all.

"He just vomited up his meal just because he felt like it," Touya grumbled sarcastically, "because it's fun, heaving your guts out. Organic or not my ass."

"Could it be from what happened to him?" Yue asked, gesturing vaguely over Tsubasa's abdomen.

" _Iie._ "

"…Alright."

"But the question also," Touya pointed out, "if he's going to vomit everything, that PEG tube isn't going to help matters."

Indeed, Touya normally thought nothing of PEG tubes. He's shoved worse things inside patients. Patients have shoved worse things inside themselves (this is Japan, after all, and Japanese people can get very creative). In the case of Tsubasa, however, everything pointed to bad news; they were going to have to put him in a straitjacket if they wanted to do that, and this would not resolve the vomiting.

"It's psychologic," said Ichibana. "If we don't get his anxiety down, none of this is going to fix anything. Psych's saying to put him on some benzodiazepines, see what happens. If he responds well, we'll go down that route and taper him as the antidepressants start working.  _Kami-sama_ , he really shouldn't be on medicine, he needs to go to the psych ward. Or the neuro ward. Something's wrong with him. If this persists, I'm going to have a word with the Children's Hospital and request a transfer. It's possible this is actually a pediatric issue, and I'm not a pediatrician."

"Huh." That was actually a good point. Sixteen years old was rather borderline; that was why they were able to get away with what they have, but it could be that physiologically, Tsubasa was not adult enough to tolerate the kind of management they were giving him.

Like PEG tubes and shit.

"Poor kid," said Ichibana. "Some people are  _sick_."

"You're telling me," Touya muttered.

* * *

Touya went on a second date with Kawasaki, because she was hot. He bought himself a motorcycle. He managed to wrap up his month as staff in the SICU and do his own shit. Sakura visited the hospital again and informed Touya that Tsubasa was eating a little bit, but he somehow looked worse than before; more out of it. Touya told her that benzodiazepines occasionally make people "seem out of it" and not to try this sort of thing at home, because straight-up alcohol was more fun anyway.

With his oral intake, Tsubasa no longer needed the PEG tube nor inpatient monitoring, and he was discharged with a month's supply of benzodiazepines. The benzodiazepine actually helped with the nausea; something Touya had seen before but had not thought of this time around. Tsubasa was always out of it, though; his eyes still slid back and forth, though neurology never addressed this in their novel-length notes, and his speech remained stilted, oscillating between complete sentences and fragments. He also seemed to have inconsistent memory problems, forgetting what was said to him, losing track of his own words, and an emotional lability that was, according to Fay, Mokona, and Kurogane, not at all like himself. Mostly, he oscillated between passive indifference and crying like a baby, and then crying because he was crying like a baby. Between the garbled nonsense that he occasionally spews, he seemed especially worried that he's lost all esteem in Kurogane's eyes, that Fay hated him for eating his recovered eye (which, by the way, what the royal  _fuck?_ ) and that he  _still_ was not good enough for his princess, that he would never feel like himself again, that what had happened to him would happen again.

Touya actually got somewhat annoyed with the companions; Mokona did his (or her…it had no genitalia either, from what he could observe) best to comfort Tsubasa, but aside from being cute and fluffy, it could not produce much more than platitudes. Kurogane and Fay, on the other hand, just stood back and let Yue handle everything. It's a little much; Yue might not need sleep, but the guardian did have one priority already, and was actually very wary of having too many. Ever since Sakura became Card Mistress and the disastrous trip to Hong Kong for Syaoran's tenth birthday, when the boy nearly died because Yue had to choose between saving his then-master and saving the child he loved, Yue did not appreciate having divided loyalties. Syaoran was always first and foremost, and while Tsubasa  _was_ Syaoran, in a way, Yue was getting a bit twitchy about leaving his real son all by himself in Philadelphia. Syaoran could take care of himself—he's twenty-three and in school and had half of Clow Reed's power in addition to his own innate magic; many strapping young idiots had studied abroad without any magic at all, at a younger, dumber age, and had done alright without supervision, but Touya could understand how Yue might be a little bit uneasy about having his attention diverted so thoroughly. Tsubasa was a clingy little bastard; it turned out, Yue's touch was the one thing that soothed the ever-present malaise and headache that the boy suffered from ever since arriving in Tomoeda, which meant Yue literally could not leave the boy's side at all. But one would think Kurogane and Fay would at least try to lighten the load; Tsubasa could not stay here indefinitely, after all, and he was  _theirs_ , their not-son, their not-brother, their not-whatever. At least say something to the wretched child; whenever Tsubasa voiced his fear of Kurogane's low regard, the ninja would just stand there silently like a dumbass. Similarly with Fay; he would just emote  _really hard_ , which was usually moot because Tsubasa had intermittent double vision and couldn't see his face half the time, and the other half—how the fuck would the kid know if Fay was frowning because he was worried or because he agreed?

He finally got fed up enough that he took both of them outside one weekend to chat.

"Yue's an immortal being powered by a giant battery," he stated, his breath fogging in the air; it was snowing in Tomoeda. In Japan in general, actually. The streets were all painted white except for the curbs, which were lined with gross, brown slush. But the snowflakes fell serenely, and all was quiet save for the occasional car and pedestrian, and Touya's baseline rage (which he always had, because he was sleep deprived) felt muted by the snow. "He loves more than a mortal. Clow Reed made him that way. He happens to love Syaoran—more than Clow Reed, even, and he's good with Tsubasa. I get it. But you guys need to start learning some of his tricks. A lot of them aren't that hard; even I know how to build rapport and I hate people. I'm a 'talk to me when you're under anesthesia' kind of guy."

The two of them just bowed their heads stupidly, as if wrestling with some profound conflict.

"Look, it's not that hard to grasp," Touya remarked. "He's lost control of his body. He feels out of control and he is out of control. If that sort of thing happened to me, and I'm thirty, I wouldn't do any better. He's sixteen years old. Sixteen-year-olds have a hard time controlling themselves as it is. They're going through all these changes in their bodies and their hormones so that life sucks even when nothing's wrong. Torture isn't just about pain. Torture is about making the victim feel helpless. In fact, this probably happened to him before; how did this Fei Wong douchebag create the clones anyway?"

Fay and Kurogane visibly paled.

"This isn't the time for him to be tough. You shouldn't be tough with everyone anyway; I come home every now and then to cry, so that I can go back to work and tell the higher-ups where they can shove it. The point is, he needs to feel safe  _somewhere_ , and he's not going to stay here forever; we have our own Syaoran who's taking great pains  _not_ to see his own father just so  _your_ brat can get himself together. He needs to feel safe with you, and that's not going to happen while you're standing around like idiots, letting Yue do everything.  _Fay-san_. Your eyeball is back. Your magic is back. Do you really blame Tsubasa for whatever the fuck had happened?"

"No." Fay blinked, looking down.

"And I don't really understand why this matters, but  _Kurogane-san_ , you saw how close Tsubasa came to dying. I can tell you right now: people have totally died from his injuries and there's nothing more to be said about it. Do you, for some reason, respect him  _less_ somehow than you did before?"

Kurogane clenched his jaw. "What is it that you want?"

"I want you two  _baka_ to go in there and take a lesson from women," Touya pointed, "and  _talk_ to that child. There's a reason children need their mothers more; fathers are totally useless,"  _No offense, Otou-san_ _, but this is generally the rule_ , "but right now he has no parents. Yue cannot be his parent. He's going to have to leave and he thinks he's leaving with people who don't like him to go home to people who don't love him. Haven't you heard what he's been crying about? No home, no one. His body got shredded and he feels like shit and he sees no evidence that he will stop feeling like shit. At this point, if you two really don't care enough about him to take responsibility, I really don't know what the fuck you're still doing here."

"We've tried though," Fay said quietly. "In the beginning. It was like our touch hurt him even more. He doesn't even like Mokona anymore, and Mokona's always been his steadfast ally. It's like he's become a different person, and the only one he's willing to get close to is your guardian friend. Nowadays, when we do approach him when Yue had to go to fetch something, he automatically asks us to kill him. He's asked Kurogane, he's asked me, and he gets even more upset when we refuse, until Yue comes back and has to calm him down. He's been repeating all the things you've said ever since he started talking…crying that he hurt me, crying that he was the reason Kurogane's parents died. He even mentions that he deserved what had happened to him, because of all his 'sins'. We've talked to him but it's like these words don't penetrate. Perhaps because he could not retain the memory…but we've tried and now we don't know what to do."

Similar to how Sakura's attempts at comforting Tsubasa ended up having absolutely no effect in the end.

" _Kuso,_ " Touya sighed. Damn head injuries. Every time he thought he got the hang of neurology, something happens to show him that, no, he really did not know anything at all, and neither does anyone.

"Does Eriol know about this?"

"We've spoken to him," Fay admitted, "but you were there when he explained…these sort of injuries can only be healed with time, if they can be healed at all. Magic only worsens things."

Touya blew out a foggy breath and wondered if cocaine would make the situation appear better.  _It probably would. If I ever get a terminal disease, I'm going to try crack._

"What's the plan?" he asked, "if this is his new baseline? Supposing he never gets better? Are you going to take him back to Sakura?"

"Would you advise that?" Kurogane asked.

Touya looked at the ninja and was struck with the sudden insight that Kurogane was a lot smarter and wiser than Touya initially thought.

" _Iie,_ " he said after a moment. "Two reasons." If he were being honest, "I would not be alright with my sister being saddled with a cripple. Even the Syaoran here, if such a thing happened. I wouldn't mind the burden, but I wouldn't want it on her. Not from the start. If something should happen now, of course, they're married and it's out of my hands and you always take a chance, but from the get go, I wouldn't be alright with it. As King, I would expect the other me would have some influence over this."

"Hm," Kurogane made a noncommittal sound.

"Also, knowing Syaoran as I do," Touya went on, "he'd hate it. He really would rather die. As much as I hate to acknowledge this…Syaoran was absolutely right, that day. It wouldn't comfort him to know that he is a burden on Sakura. Wouldn't comfort him to know that he is a burden on anyone. He certainly would rather she never know."

The two companions were silent.

"We feel the same," Fay said after a while. "Kurogane and I were talking. If taking him home were not an option…we were considering bringing him to Kurogane's world. I have no home to return to, so I can help take care of him there, and the Empress and Princess would not mind having him. The other option is to search for a way to make him whole again, but…what Eriol said might be true across all dimensions."

"There is no Syaoran there?"

"No."

Touya inhaled and fogged another breath. He wondered if smokers smoked because they liked to watch their breath sizzle out. "You're really willing to do that for him?"

It was Kurogane who answered. "Young as he was, Syaoran taught both of us a lot. As much as his choices might have been the cause of everything else, he had given back as much as what had been taken. He was steadfast, loving, loyal, and strong, without being cruel, without losing hope, faith in others. He is far stronger than we were, and through him we learned what true strength really looked like. What hurt the most of all was seeing such a creature lose faith in himself. He was pure, and this was not because of ignorance; it was because of compassion. After all the suffering and obstacles beforehand, all it took was a very bad day, an unfortunate decision. We watch innocence die before our very eyes, slowly and in agony, and nothing we do…alleviates his pain at all. You underestimate the depths of our bond, Doctor. What we've gone through together, the trials we faced, both in terms of those that fought against us and those that pushed us apart, are things no one else can ever comprehend. What Syaoran means to us, too, for all that you see similarities between him and your bright, glowing, thriving version, is beyond anything you can ever know. So yes: we are willing to do this for him. I will set aside my sword, my place at Princess Tomoyo's side to tend to him, to his last days if need be, and Fay will entwine his destiny with Tsubasa Syaoran until he needs us no longer. The only trouble is that he finds no comfort in our presence: only pain."

"Neither of us are caretakers, really," Fay admitted. "Kurogane is a warrior, one of the best, and I was a wizard with great destructive power, also one of the best, but both of us dealt with challenges best with violence. We've each done our part to ensure that Syaoran could also dispose of problems with violence. Seeing him with Yue is eye-opening on many fronts. Kurogane remembers such tenderness; I don't. He's never even met Syaoran before and yet seems to know exactly what to do."

"Yue recognizes Syaoran's soul," Touya intoned, "which is apparently the same soul across dimensions…which I don't really understand, but that's apparently the explanation. Unfortunately, there is no other Yue. Possibly because Yue was a creation."

"He is a very beautiful creation," Fay sighed. "If my knowledge extended to creating instead of destroying, perhaps another possibility is to create a being like Yue for him…but that's not how my magic is oriented."

"Probably better that he is cared for by humans," Kurogane grumbled. "Pretty as your guardian may be."

"But neither of us are good at caring for others. If we really can't take him back to Princess Sakura, we're the only ones he has and…we're not good at this." Fay looked down. "I ask myself, what did he do to deserve this? Why did any of this happen, when all it had been was a wish made out of love, and his wish was also from love, love and filial piety. Out of us three, the last one it should have been was Syaoran. He shouldered all his burdens alone and yet remained so kind. Both Kurogane and I lost our kindness in the face of adversity. We've both committed far more crimes than he. And yet he is the one who suffered the most."

Touya looked away.  _It's because it's always the good ones._ It was almost a prognostic factor among doctors: the nicer the patient, the worse the diagnosis and outcome.

Suddenly, a wave of magic, carrying Yue's voice, sailed over all of them.

_TOUYA!_

* * *

By the time they went back in, Yue had placed Tsubasa flat on the floor and was doing compressions.

"What the fuck—"

"He just went," Yue leaned back and summoned an orb of magic, before slamming it into the boy's chest. The body quaked, but did not otherwise respond.

"What the fuck?!"

"Touya, help!" Yue looked over, eyes wide with panic.

Touya still had trouble understanding what was happening. "He was fine when we left!"

"He was in my arms and asleep," Yue tried to magically resuscitate the boy again, but it was as fruitless as the first attempt. "He started fading really quickly, and then he was gone!"

" _Kuso!_ " Touya pushed Yue aside. " _Matte matte matte—_ are you fucking shitting me—" but there was no heartbeat, and no breath. "What the fuck?!"

"Touya, what do I do?"

"Do compressions," Touya opened the boy's eyes to look at the pupils. "What the royal fuck?" He was eating, he was drinking, what else could have happened? A bleed? This late? This made no sense. Was there a seizure? Why would Tsubasa have a seizure while on benzodiazepines? 

 _Whatever._ He snapped his fingers at Fay and Kurogane. "One of you go to the phone, dial 119 and tell them we have a sixteen-year-old boy with sudden cardiac arrest, address is—"

Before he could finish, Tsubasa's body suddenly glowed a bright white, and a magic circle appeared under him. It looked like Syaoran's  _rashinban_. Yue stopped compressing and drew back in alarm as the light on Tsubasa's body condensed, came together, and formed a bright feather with amber and green stripes.

It flashed, bright white and blinding. When the spots faded from Touya's eyes, the feather was gone. Tsubasa remained flat on the floor, motionless. His little face was pale as sheet.

Yue lunged to his feet. "Xiaolang," he whispered, and his wings grew out of his back as he dove out to the hall.

It took Touya a split second to realize what the guardian was doing, and what this could mean.

"Motherfucker," he also turned, slipped, fell on his side (ow) but rose to his feet faster than a blink, and dove down the hall after Yue.

"Doctor!" Mokona exclaimed. "What happened?"

"My  _ototo_ is in trouble!" Touya yelled back, just as Yue opened a closet door that was linked with the Loop card to another closet in Philadelphia. The guardian went in, the Loop card flashing after him. Touya caught the door before it could swing shut and jumped in after him without looking back.

 

 


	6. In Which a Decision is Made

It was dark when they arrived; daytime in Tomoeda meant nighttime in Philadelphia. Sakura and Eriol were, to Touya's surprise, already there. The feather was hovering in front of Syaoran, who was still reclining on his bed, but holding his arms out and using all of his focus and energy to keep the feather from sinking into him. Eriol and Sakura ran to the bedside and tried to grab hold of it physically, but it just phased through their hands. They ended up pressing their hands to Syaoran instead to give him more power.

"Agh!" he exclaimed as Yue reached him as well. "It's like a magnet! What the hell happened?"

"The other you died," Yue reported, reaching over to provide energy as well.

" _Nani?!_ How?!"

"No clue," Touya staggered to a stop. "Never seen that one before. But what's going on?"

"The other Syaoran's soul is trying to merge with ours," Eriol said in a steady voice.

Kurogane and Fay appeared at Touya's side, Mokona on Fay's shoulder.

"Where are we?" Kurogane asked.

Touya turned to the side. "Is there a light switch—" his fingers found something and he turned it on. The room was instantly illuminated.

Syaoran lived in a modest studio. There was no separate bedroom; everything was in one area, save for the bathroom. There was a couch in the middle and a desk for studying as well as a bookshelf. There was otherwise no television or other furniture. As was somewhat annoyingly befitting of the young man, the place was tidy.

"I hate you so much," Touya grumbled.

"What the hell happened?" Syaoran asked again, "I thought he was out of the hospital! He didn't try to kill himself, did he?"

" _Iie,_ " Yue replied. "He just died in my arms, all of the sudden. I can't explain how."

The feather inched closer to Syaoran as the young man looked up. "Just all of the sudden? How does that even happen?"

"Focus," Eriol remonstrated. "You need to get rid of the feather. You can't let it merge with you; his memories will mix in with yours and the two of you will fuse."

"How do I get rid of it?"

"What happens if he gets rid of it?" Kurogane looked at Touya.

"How the fuck should I know?" Touya exclaimed. "I don't even know how to cast fucking spells!"

"No," Fay breathed, and sailed forward. "No, please, that will kill him, there must be another way! We can—we can bring him back, back to where we were, and try to put it back in his body—"

"It won't work," Eriol said gravely.

"I—" Syaoran exclaimed, but the feather shifted closer and nearly went into him. " _Kuso._ "

" _Syaoran-kun,_ just focus on keeping the feather away from you," Sakura encouraged, "We'll try to cut the ties off."

"No!" Fay fell to his knees and reached out. "Please! He'll  _die!_ That's his  _soul_ —"

" _He_ already has a soul," Eriol inclined his head, indicating their own Syaoran, who stopped talking in favor of concentrating on the feather. It slowly moved away from him, light pulsing. "And your suggestion won't work. Tsubasa's spirit escaped because his body, his vessel, is no longer equipped to contain it."

"We don't  _know_ that—"

"We do," said the British sorcerer, "but right now it is jeopardizing  _our_ Syaoran. We can't let this stand."

Kurogane also went forward, but he knelt on one knee and reached out to touch Fay on the shoulder. 

"Syaoran!" Mokona whimpered.

"We'll create a new vessel then," Fay said quickly. "You said that creating bodies is no problem, it's what you put in them. That feather contains all of Syaoran's memories.  _Please_ , you said yourself, he couldn't have come here to die, not when there's Yue, there's you—he's a good boy, he's one of the best people I know," his voice grew thick with tears and he sobbed, " _Please don't kill him."_

Eriol turned, his fair face white in the light. He had dropped his glasses somewhere, for he was not wearing them right now.

"Souls don't leave until they're ready," he said quietly, hand still pressed on Syaoran to give him strength, but his mind was not focused on the feather anymore. "It is as much a transgression to kill a life before its time as it is to keep a life after."

"It's not his time," Kurogane whispered.

"You are so sure," said Eriol.

"We came here for a reason," Fay insisted. "You said so yourself. Nothing is a coincidence. You happen to have knowledge of creation; you were Clow Reed! You possess all his memories, all his knowledge.  _Please_. This child is as much yours as your Syaoran is—he has suffered in your name, and he had come to you now for help. Please don't do this!"

"I can create a body for him," Eriol replied, "but there are consequences. His own body failed. The new one will not fit like the old one, and a soul can be shaped by its vessel as much as the vessel is shaped by the soul. Given his history with the clones and with Fei Wong Reed, he will become the very thing that had hurt him in the past. Add to the fact, his true body is broken, and is now dead. I cannot use it as a foundation to create a clone, the way Fei Wong did. I will need other materials to build this vessel. What should I make? One out of magic, like Yue and Cerberus? Cerberus' magic is tied to the Clow Cards, while Yue is currently tied to Syaoran; his very existence depends on Syaoran's ability to provide him with power. A being out of pure magic will forever rely on a donor, not unlike a vampire. Should I turn Tsubasa into such a creature? Or I can mix in real flesh with magic, but where should I get this flesh? I cannot use our Syaoran's, for then their forms will automatically attempt to merge, as they are doing now. It will have to come from donors, yet again, and that is not a trivial matter. To give flesh is to create life; seed from both father and mother, and for all that we see examples of failure on this front, to give life is to take responsibility for that life. What happens to him thereafter will be on your conscience, and if it turns out that he would have been better off dead, that will be on your head as well. Mixing flesh with magic, too, requires a donation of magic. Tell me, mage: are you willing to weaken yourself so that Tsubasa will be reborn?"

Fay reached across the floor in supplication. "Yes, yes, all of them, yes." He trembled, voice high with shock from what had happened and fear of what will happen. "I'd give it all. It never gave me joy, this—it would be the one thing that would.  _Please_ , don't kill him. Just don't kill him. I'll do anything—"

"Think carefully," Eriol said, unmoved. "This isn't a light matter, Fay D. Flowright. Not only do you need to consider whether you are willing to be responsible for this child, you also need to take into account his wishes. Would Tsubasa be willing to answer to you as his creator? Because that is what you will be: a creator, as will I, and a creation is different from a child. A child is created by a far higher power than any of us can comprehend, and has all the protections from that higher power. A creation will rely only on you, on your foresight, on your love. Clow Reed once dared to accept this challenge. His creations were lauded by many, but they did not come to be without great pain and heartbreak. Now was clearly Tsubasa's time. If we are to extend it, he needs to want this, too."

Fay crumpled. "Please, he deserves another chance. Out of all of us he deserves—he is just like Syaoran, and you would save him too, I know you would! Please, I'll pay any price, I'll do anything, I'll give up my name, I'll take his place,  _please_ ," he grew more desperate, as Syaoran was able to push the feather further and further away from himself. "Don't—I can't bear it,  _please_ , Syaoran, Syaoran listen to me, we aren't like Yue, we didn't raise you since you were little, we weren't able to save you but I  _swear_ , you're the only family I have left, you and Kurogane, that's the real reason I had wanted to come with you  _please!_ "

"Syaoran, _no!_ " Kurogane cried out, as the young man nevertheless yanked the feather out, but green crackles of light surrounded the glowing item, formed between Syaoran's hands. Sakura let go, drawing back. Her expression was grim. Yue and Eriol kept their hands on him. He was holding the feather still, though he had tugged it free from himself.

If he let go, the feather will dissipate, and Tsubasa will be no more.

He sat up looked over to where Fay and Kurogane knelt, Fay sobbing and Kurogane stone-faced with dread.

"He'll wake in a body not his own, to a life not his own," he said softly. "An imposter, when he had imposed so often, all his life. He has failed in his objective, failed in finding his parents, failed in even holding on to that which embodied them.  _Fay-san_.  _Kurogane-san._ Is that really better than to leave, to rest?"

" _Syaoran-kun_ ," said Sakura, "there is a version of me waiting for him. She loves him, loves him here," and she pointed to that feather, still trapped in Syaoran's magic. "He is her soulmate, her life's purpose. Whatever body he wears matters not. What more reason does one need to live, than a purpose? He will need adjusting, this is true, but  _Kurogane-san_ and  _Fay-san_ are willing. See how desperate they are. They love him, even if it looks different to us. And she loves him, as I love you. Tsubasa never takes the easy way out. Let's not turn him into a coward, simply out of fear of an unknown. I feel, after this, there is happiness waiting for him. His parents were always extensions of him; he never needed to find them, for they were and have always been part of him. He will return home with people he always had, to people who are waiting. Is that not worth living for?"

A long silence fell as Syaoran contemplated this.

" _Otou-san_ ," he said to Yue, "what do you think?"

"Would that all versions of you thrive in wellness," said the guardian, surprisingly composed considering they were discussing the fate of a child he had held in his arms for the past few weeks, "but I know this is not practical. This child is beyond my power to love once he leaves this world. I think neither option is necessarily righter than the other."

"He is loved, I know it," said Sakura, "for he is a loving being, just as you are. And beings who love are never unloved."

Eriol turned to Sakura. "The vessel will take time to create. Syaoran will have to be locked away in stasis and act as a temporary container for Tsubasa's spirit. To prevent them from merging, we need you and your cards. The Shield card, to keep the two versions separated, and the Time card, to keep him in stasis."

" _Hai,_ " Sakura nodded, "I will do so. How long will it take?"

"Might take a while," said Eriol. "Yue and Cerberus took years to create. Creating a physical vessel with a soul already at the ready should take a lot less time."

"Meaning?"

"Weeks."

Sakura smiled. "Weeks, compared to a lifetime. I think I can manage, so long as I get him back." She turned to Syaoran. " _Onegai._ They came for a reason. They came so we can give them hope. Tsubasa could have died anywhere."

Syaoran closed his eyes.

 _Kami-sama_ , Touya's heart was pounding in his ribcage. He actually had no idea which option he would choose.  _Fuck, what would Syaoran want? But what would Tsubasa want? Are they the same? How on earth is one supposed to decide in a split second like this?!_ And how did Tsubasa die? How does sudden death happen like this? He had never seen that before! There was not even a warning…

Fay was still weeping, shoulders shuddering. Kurogane's hand was still on Fay. For all his apparent stillness, Touya could sense the ninja was frightened too.

The fate of a loved one, hinged on a decision not their own.

"Eriol," Syaoran murmured.

"Xiaolang."

The younger sorcerer opened his amber eyes. "I'll do it."

* * *

Tsubasa's body was still on the floor in the studio, a limp, bony husk. The sight of him was still a surprise; Touya wished fervently that the brat had died sooner than this, because then the world would have made sense; he had an epidural hematoma, his intestines had just been raked. Patients should really read the medical textbooks from time to time and actually do what the literature said to do, like not die for no reason weeks after surgery without any explanation whatsoever.

_Seriously, what the fuck?_

Fay was still crying, shuddering from relief and sadness at the sight of the boy. Mokona was also tearful, hopping on the unmoving chest. Kurogane quietly pulled the body into his lap to cradle it, and Fay settled across, bowing his head down to press his face against the boy's cold stomach. Yue, Eriol, and Touya regarded them for a moment before silently backing away, leaving them alone. They headed outside to where it was still snowing, the sounds of people shoveling scraping in the air.

"I'm glad," Yue said quietly.

"Hm?" Touya raised his eyebrows.

"That boy was filled with such sorrow," the guardian explained, "all the pain he had endured, just flooded him. That's why Syaoran was so reluctant, but he also knows himself well. I think it fitting that he would choose to be optimistic, despite it all. And I believe in Sakura. I think she is right. He is loved, as we can see. See how much pain his absence brings already. As long as he is loved, I think he'll be alright."

"You didn't really fight for his survival," Touya accused.

"He died from grief, Touya," Yue whispered. "For someone whose life had brought him so much agony, how could I choose? Death would bring him peace. Life could bring him hope, or more pain. How could I choose? I did not know these people. I do not understand them. I only know Syaoran. If it were him…I would have argued for life in a heartbeat, but he would have, too, because he knows he is loved. This child…didn't really believe it. And I didn't understand his companions."

"Hm."

"I think we made the right decision," Eriol said quietly.

"You just have a soft spot for Syaoran," Touya dismissed. "You know, this one didn't make your guardian go rogue."

The sorcerer smirked. "He would have, though."

"He would have," Yue agreed.

"Motherfucker," Touya lamented. "How did I not see that coming." Some doctor he was. This was psychologically traumatizing. "What the hell did I miss?"

He went on his phone to research sudden death, which turned up mostly sudden death in older patients whose hearts were more fat than muscle, sudden death from epilepsy, as well as shaken baby syndrome. It could be epilepsy, he decided. The benzodiazepines might not have suppressed it, and with the head injury…but that did not sit well with him. Unless every time Tsubasa appeared disoriented was actually a seizure? But then he would be post-ictal, but then some seizures apparently had no post-ictal period (what the shit?) and he gave up for the moment.

"Guys, we have a dead body upstairs."

"Hm," Eriol said noncommittally.

"What are we going to do, are we going to erase it, are we going to burn it, are we going to pour sulfuric acid over it, are we going to donate it to a medical school, what are we going to do?"

"Might have to put it in stasis as well," said Eriol. "I'll need it for reference."

"Should have brought Sakura with us."

"Let them have a moment," said Yue. "They're mourning. They're in shock. And if the new body doesn't take, it would be their last moments with him."

Touya sighed. "What the fuck did I miss?" Yue set his hand on his shoulder sympathetically.

"It happened very quickly," Yue told him. "He was fine minutes before, and then I felt him shut down."

"You're taking this well."

"I'm not happy," said Yue, "but I had a feeling this might happen. Syaoran had a feeling this might happen. We didn't expect his soul to attempt to merge with Syaoran's upon passing, instead of crossing over." The guardian lifted his hand off. "That was a close call."

"Good thing you gave Syaoran half of your magic," Touya said to Eriol. "Bought us some time."

"Indeed."

They waited an hour before going back upstairs, but Kurogane and Fay were still with the body and did not look quite ready to let it go. Mokona curled up under the cold chin and sobbed quietly. With the child dead, Touya could see: these two idiots really just did not know what to do, but they did care for the boy. The tears had dried, but the desolation remained. They held the body's hands, touched its face, stroked its hair in turn; all things they probably never did when the boy was alive, but wished they had.

It always works that way.

Touya remembered his first death. It was back when he was a medical student doing his clinical clerkships. An old man, huffing and puffing from end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, on his last gasps that stretched for an entire two weeks. Touya thought he looked pretty much dead as it was, but when the man actually died, the change was dramatic. He would never forget the surprise that came with it; that adage that there was something else to a life besides beating hearts and moving air seemed true after all, because something just goes missing when a person dies, no matter how sick and close to death they were beforehand.

Tsubasa almost looked unrecognizable, with his face slack and all fire and spirit gone from his body. Touya, with determination, did  _not_ think about the fact that Syaoran would likely look the same at that age. That line of thought would just drive him down a road of no return.

They gave their extra-dimensional visitors four hours with the body, because that was apparently when rigor mortis sets in (Touya had to look this up; surgeons dealt with living bodies, not dead ones, so he could not remember exactly how long this took since they usually just hand the cadavers over to the morgue) before Yue gently pried the three away from the corpse. At this point, the sun had set.

"Tsubasa," the guardian said to the still face as he gathered the boy into his arms, "I had wanted to take you flying. It use to bring my own son such joy. You were always too sick and frail though…but we'll do this while your body remains."

Kurogane, Fay, and Mokona silently watched as the guardian spread his wings at the window and flew out, up into the dark heavens.

"What will happen now?" Kurogane asked.

"Sakura will put it in stasis," said Touya, "so it doesn't start putrefying and stuff. Nasty stuff, putrefaction."

What a depressing day off.

* * *

Everyone asked Touya if he was alright at work. Touya was not sure what gave it away. He thought he was acting normally; he still yelled at the residents and the medical students, his patients still complained, and everyone was unhappy with their new OR rooms because the lights were different, the layout was different, everything was just  _different_. 

"You sure you're alright?" Miyamoto asked.

"Why does everyone keep asking that?" Touya thought he had a better poker face.

"You're shit at playing poker," said Miyamoto. "Anyway, you just seem really sad today."

" _Naaani?_ " Fuck.

"Well, you're not denying it."

Touya hesitated. "Friend of mine passed away."

One of the other surgeons winced. "College friend?"

 _Sure. Why not._ " _Hai_."

"What happened?"

"Don't know. Happened suddenly. Otherwise had been…fine, from what I know."  _Kami-sama._

Miyamoto pressed a reassuring hand on Touya's shoulder. "Sorry for your loss. When's the funeral?"

"Haven't heard."

"Well, let us know if you need to take off."

"Will do."

He  _was_ upset, Touya decided. Not just because the boy died all of the sudden; he had never seen a death like  _this_ before, but there have certainly been cases where patients just code and the autopsies reveal nothing—but just the whole situation. Li Tsubasa, with his messed up parentage, falling to the mercy of a nutjob like Fei Wong Reed, trying so hard to fix things only to perish, thinking he was ruined, that he could not go home this way, that he deserved what happened to him, and the utter misery of his last days, vomiting up everything unless he essentially became drunk, and it felt like a failure. Because without Eriol and without Syaoran and without Sakura, Tsubasa would have died. He essentially already was, it was just that Syaoran currently hosted his soul so that he would not stay dead. And if he would even be the same when he came back—that was a question Touya did not want to go into. That was Fay and Kurogane's problem. His own Syaoran was alive.

Sort of. His Syaoran was placed in stasis by Sakura and might remain that way for the next few weeks.

He was debriding a woman with hidradenitis—her third debridement, when he suddenly just wanted to throw his instruments to the floor and leave the OR because what the hell was the point? What was the point? She would just get a recurrence again, like she always did, because hidradenitis was a shitty condition to have, it was painful, it smelled atrocious, and it never goes away, she would be pumped full of steroids and blow up like a balloon and here Touya was, suturing rotting tissue that could not even hold the sutures together, the flesh just tears from the lines like tissue paper, and all the trauma from the surgery itself would just make the inflammation even worse, so what the fuck was he doing? The Whipple Man was in the next room with his stupid Whipple procedure that would allow the patient to live for maybe an extra six months, the open cholecystectomy was going to leave that patient dealing with small bowel obstruction for the rest of her life. Why the hell did they even bother with this shit?

He rode the motorcycle home. He ignored the texts from his sister. He sat down on the floor while still in his scrubs. He thought about going to work again in the morning and suddenly wanted to hang himself. Tsubasa had died. In his last days he got raped every night in his dreams. During the day he suffered chronic headaches and vertigo. He was horrified by his own body and what had happened to it. All this, to get his family back, and go home to a girl whose brother was Touya himself, except this Touya was a fancy king who did not like Tsubasa, and there was no Yue.

Li Tsubasa really had a shitty life.

The doorbell rang.

"Huh?" Surprised, Touya sat there stupidly for a moment, but then the doorbell rang again.

It was his father.

"Touya," Fujitaka exclaimed, "Sorry to just barge in like this. Sakura told me you weren't answering her; asked me to stop by to see how you're doing."

" _Otou-san_."  _Kami-sama._ He was torn between feeling that child-like joy at seeing his father, and the adult dread of having to explain just why he was so upset.

Fujitaka studied him. "Bad day at work?"

"When is it a good day?" Touya backed away to let him in. "The world is fucked up."

Touya started swearing a lotmore ever since medical school. Fujitaka never approved, but this time he did not remonstrate his offspring.

"Did you eat yet?"

"… _Iie._ "

"Well, let's fix that first, hm?"

It was kind of odd, being taken care of by his dad. It seemed like a long time since this happened. Fujitaka was not familiar with the layout of the place, but he found his way around the kitchen with a kind of ease that reminded Touya of how Yue had known just how to handle Tsubasa, other than that period when Tsubasa was angry after learning there was another Syaoran here.

Did all parents have this instinct? That cannot be. Touya had seen too many parents get surprised when they had to do a urine pregnancy test prior to getting a CT scan. Or even before they got the urine pregnancy test. He had seen some really strange things over the last ten years.

"A kid died, yesterday," he said to his father as the man turned on the faucet in the sink.

"I heard. Sakura told me."

"He was sixteen."

"That's young."

"He got raped."

Fujitaka opened the cupboard. "Heard Yue was with him in the end."

"Died suddenly. No warning. I was even there that day. Saw him. Was his old regular weeping self."

"Must have been hard."

"And he was a good boy, on all accounts."

"I'm sure he was."

"He's an orphan too."

Fujitaka closed the cupboard.

"Why do these things happen?" Touya asked, wishing his father could give him a straight answer despite knowing that the man would not know.

Fujitaka somehow found the cutting board; Touya had no idea how he knew it was tucked away in the leftmost drawer.

"When your  _Oka-san_ died," Fujitaka began as he started slicing the tomatoes, "one of the other professors, Deguchi, remarked that she was 'too good for this world'. Sounded like something he would say of anyone, but at the time I thought it rather apt. Your mother wasn't perfect, but she was beautiful where it counts, and when she left…it kind of made sense. Because she was starting to get better at all the things she use to be bad at. As a mother, she had to figure out how to cook. She had to figure out how not to fall over you or Sakura. And the better she got, at these deficiencies, the more sick she became, and then she left for a better place. We're all mortal. Who knows why we're here, but we are all just passing through. Any purpose we serve here gets undone rather quickly, in the grand scheme of things. They're important in terms of where we go afterwards, I think. He was probably too good for his body, especially after something horrible like that."

"Why would such a thing even happen to him?" Touya leaned back in his chair. "If these things happen to good people, then what's the fucking point?"

"Bad things happen to good people because good things happen to bad people," Fujitaka pointed out. "When good things happen to bad people, there's a chance they might learn to be good. I like to think that when bad things happen to good people, it's because they're paying the price to give bad people a chance. An ultimate good deed, self-sacrifice. You see that in history. Very often when something bad happens to a good person, there's an overall benefit to those around him. A father's suffering frequently leads to his son's prosperity. A brother's death commonly results in his sibling's survival and well-being. But it's harder with children," he nodded his head in agreement. "There's always something that feels distinctly wrong about the death of a child. It just shouldn't happen."

"It happens all the damn time."

"It's alright to be sad, my son. But this child will always have a place in your heart, and Yue is very loving. I'm sure when the boy died, he passed peacefully. Yue has that affect on people. He's very soothing."

…True.

Fujitaka cooked and ate dinner with his son. He left afterwards because Touya had to go to work in the morning. Even though his father said nothing that Touya did not already know, or think of, somehow going to work in the morning seemed more doable.

Even if it was still shitty.

* * *

Tsubasa's new…vessel, was to be composed of part of Kurogane  _and_ Fay, as well as half of Fay's magic, which Touya thought was eerily reminiscent of how Syaoran's own magic included half of Clow Reed's. Sakura was involved in the proceedings, as without Syaoran, Eriol only had half of Clow's original power, but with her help it actually did not require too many weeks before something began to take shape. Sort of. It was mostly a transparent figure of magic that had no facial features and some amorphous blobs for limbs, sort of like an embryo. A very creepy embryo with no face.

"This was what you looked like when you started out," Touya said to Yue and Kero. "How do you feel?"

"Kind of mesmerized," Kero admitted.

Fay actually had a lot more magic than Touya thought, because half of it felt like a  _lot_. Eriol remarked that if Clow and Fay were to face each other in battle, he was not sure who would win.

"I don't have as much magic as Clow," Fay said with some confidence.

"You have more destructive magic than Clow," was Eriol's answer.

"Is that how Tsubasa will be?" Touya asked. "All destructive power?"

"Plus whatever his soul brings with it. It will be an adjustment for him."

"It should be fine," said Kurogane. "It would be like when his clone possessed Fay's magic. Except this time it's given, not stolen, and he's not an emotionless killer."

"Fine for you, perhaps," said Eriol. "We'll see if he's fine with it."

"I'll convince him that it's fine," said Fay.

He and Kurogane had grown more determined as the days passed. After the shock and grief of losing the original Tsubasa, they looked to this as their one hope in the midst of all this.

"Syaoran did not look like this when he was a baby, did he?" Yue asked with some disappointment. The guardian's one regret was that he did not get to know Syaoran when he was an infant, mostly because his photo album always seemed incomplete without baby pictures.

"Syaoran looked like a tadpole," Touya replied. "This is way too big for a baby. They start off looking like little worms. With very big and deformed heads."

Embryos look really weird.

"I've always wanted to play with him as a baby," Yue moped.

"I'm not making a baby vessel for Tsubasa," Eriol cut in. "That would be absolutely cruel and rather pointless."

"Not suggesting you should," Yue replied, though he still managed to appear disappointed. "in any case, this would mean that Kurogane and Fay are his parents, wouldn't it?"

Touya raised his eyebrows. That is freaky on many levels.

Fay and Kurogane apparently already thought of this, and did not look perturbed. Mokona hopped up and down on Kurogane's head.

"It's as it should be!" said the little thing. "Mommy-Fay and Daddy-Kuro!"

"Weird," said Kero, which Touya agreed with.

"More than clones?" Yue cocked an eyebrow.

Touya and Kero waved their heads around. "Ehh." About even.

"You didn't design Yue and Ruby Moon with genitalia," said Touya. "Do you even know how?"

Eriol groaned. "Touya."

Yue started laughing. "Touya, you're incorrigible. I don't remember you being like this even when you were in high school."

"It's a valid concern," Touya pointed out, because he was actually being serious. "You had to ask my  _Otou-san_ to give Syaoran  _the talk_. Imagine if Tsubasa has to go home to his princess without a penis. Then he'd  _really_ prefer death."

Yue slapped his hand to his face. Eriol ducked his head to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Let me put it this way: there's a reason I kept his old body for reference."

"Is it going to continue growing?" Touya asked. "You know that at sixteen years old, he's not necessarily at Tanner V, might still be a Tanner IV. In fact he hasn't reached his overall height so the rest of him hasn't reached their full length."

"God," Eriol said in English, still pinching his nose.

"You probably don't have to follow the blueprint  _exactly_ ," Touya remarked, "if you want to really make him happy about the situation you can give him some extra _endowment_."

"You realize he's going to use that thing to have sex with your sister," Kero said to Touya.

"Not  _my_ sister," but Touya realized this line of conversation had the potential to end very poorly for him.

"Exactly," said Yue. "His sister already has a Syaoran to do that with."

 _Kuso._ Right. He made his own noose with this one.

"You surgeons are all the same," Eriol rolled his eyes.

"You know one thing you can do is adjust the prostate," Touya went on, "do him a favor and make it so that it doesn't wrap around the urethra—"

"Don't you have work to do?"

"—and maybe it shouldn't grow either, or if it does it doesn't squeeze him and give him urinary retention—"

"That adage about surgeons—"

"No but seriously, benign prostatic hypertrophy stinks. I'd rather wear diapers than not be able to pee—"

Eriol physically pushed Touya away. "We're done here. Go do something else."

"Would his sperm carry his genetic material or would it be Fay's or Kurogane's?" Touya was honestly curious. "Or would he be sterile because his body's not real? Would he even make sperm?"

"Get out of here," Eriol pushed him out instead of dignifying this with answers.

"These are all valid questions!" Touya protested.

" _Hai,_ " Yue laughed, and looped an arm around the doctor's shoulders, "but you don't need to know the answers."

"…Fair enough," Touya conceded.

* * *

As it happened, Eriol and Sakura were very meticulous; Tsubasa's body did possess a penis, which Touya was not allowed to look at (fine by him) and was identical to Syaoran at the tender age of sixteen, except he looked really soft and squishy, and it was not because his bones had not calcified.

"Syaoran's skin use to be like this," Yue rubbed the arm with that far-away look he wore more and more often as the project neared completion. "Baby skin."

"There is, like, no muscle tone," Touya picked the other arm up and let it flop down. Even dead bodies were not like this.

"Of course not. This body had never been alive."

But it was kind of crazy; Touya felt along the rib cage and there were twelve ribs, with the floating ones in the back, and the liver on the right, no spleen (Eriol did not give the body splenomegaly). Touya found two areolas (they would have had to remember to put those there) and even a belly button, which was not strictly necessary in this case, but would have been weird if it were missing. 

"This is crazy," Touya exclaimed. "This is insane. He has literally every organ? How the hell did you do that?"

"Well," Sakura remarked, "that was what the donations were for."

"Soft," said Yue, still rubbing the arm, looking very nostalgic.

"So he'd be missing organs if he didn't have a donation from Kurogane and Fay?" Whatever this donation entailed.

"I don't have all the organs," Yue pointed out. "Neither does Kerberus."

Fay and Kurogane ended up finding the body far stranger than Touya did. Kurogane was initially wary of even touching the thing, while Fay clasped and squeezed its hand, stroked its hair, and looked kind of lost.

"Why does he look so…" Kurogane gestured.

"He has no muscle tone, so his face is all weird," said Touya. "It's like extreme botox. Floppy baby syndrome."

"He looks better than he did initially," Fay said skeptically, referring to the fact that Eriol's creation did not look emaciated.

"Well, I would hope so," said Eriol. "We want this vessel to take, not give up the soul like his original."

It was clear the two of them did not know what to look for, but Kurogane eventually gathered his courage and they both seemed to get use to the idea.

"Why this outfit?" Touya asked.

Eriol had clad the body in a set of green robes that Syaoran owned as a teenager; very Chinese, with a Mandarin collar and gold trim.

"Ceremony," Sakura replied.

"The other option was pajamas," Eriol admitted, "which we did not think was appropriate for the occasion."

"This is nuts," Touya shook his head. "So you two can basically keep anyone here indefinitely. Just create some bodies and put the soul in them."

"Not true," Eriol replied. "The only reason we were able to help Tsubasa this way was because his counterpart is here and was able to keep them from merging without sending the soul on its way. Souls don't usually turn into feathers and whisk off to another physical location upon dying."

 _Ah_.

Eriol rested his hands on the body's forehead. "This body has no memory. It is clean, it is pure. The skin is soft—Yue, stop touching it." Yue quickly withdrew his hand, looking wistful. "It's going to take him time to get use to it. His soul had just been in a battered vessel. The first breath will be painful. He's going to be disoriented. He might not be able to talk properly, or move properly. He might cast spells by accident: it's important that he be allowed to do so—no suppressions at this stage. And he's going to be very scared. He'll need some time to integrate." He looked at Fay and Kurogane. "You two will have to talk to him, let him hear you. This isn't the time for him to be brave. This isn't the time for you to force him to be brave. This is a very delicate process, and if he doesn't like it, the vessel won't take. If he doesn't feel safe, he might flee and the vessel won't take. His senses will be very blurred at first, from his hearing to his vision to his understanding. His heart recognizes Sakura, so she will help you orient him, but ultimately it will be up to the two of you, because he will know that she is not his Sakura once his mind clears. If this is not successful, the magic circle will form and he will try to merge with our Syaoran again—this vessel would be forfeit in that case. We may attempt to make a new vessel, but it would be even less likely to take than this one, as his soul has been isolated for too long. If this  _is_ successful…he'll let us know. Let's try to make it easy for him, hm?"

Eriol had hidden Syaoran in a pocket dimension while in stasis, so that nothing might hurt him. He brought him back; Syaoran remained frozen in time, eyes closed and hands over his chest. The Shield Card's figure, a Clow wing, was etched on his forehead, and his skin glowed a mixed of blue and green.

Eriol reached for Syaoran's hands and pulled.

"Ack," he exclaimed, "it really is like a magnet. How Syaoran managed to push it away;  _Sakura-san_ , I'll need your help."

But even with Sakura, it was a tough job. Touya squinted, wondering if they forgot a step; maybe cancel the Time card for this?

After a few attempts, Eriol turned to Fay.

"I'll need you to give me a hand here."

The fair-haired sorcerer went instantly. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just donate some of your energy so I can pull this thing."

The feather came out reluctantly, and Eriol captured it in a golden magical cage, not unlike Syaoran had in the beginning.

"It's trying to go. Don't take your hands off me," Eriol warned. " _Jesus Christ_ , this thing is very volatile."

He slammed it onto the top of the body's head. There was a crack of energy, and the body flickered. A magical circle instantly formed under it.

"Shite!" Eriol exclaimed. He suddenly whirled around and grabbed Syaoran's static body and shoved at it. It vanished in a flash.

The magic circle grew brighter, before shrinking down and disappearing.

Tsubasa gasped. Cried out.

" _Syaoran-kun!_ " Sakura exclaimed.

Tsubasa seized. Sakura took his face in her hands. " _Syaoran-kun,_ you're alright."

Kurogane uttered something that did not translate.

"Syaoran!" Mokona hopped onto Tsubasa's chest. "It worked!"

Tsubasa opened his eyes, and then a spell flew out of both, striking the ceiling. Sakura had dodged just in time.

"Whoa!" Kero exclaimed as plaster rained down. "Alright, so that's how this is going to be, huh."

"We have to let him keep doing that?" Touya exclaimed.

" _Sakura-san_ ," Eriol raised his hand at her, "Yue,  _Fay-san_ , Cerberus, we're going to have to work together to neutralize his stray spells."

Tsubasa seized again, and another spell came bursting out. Yue caught it with one hand, before gasping and shaking it out.

"Fay D. Flowright," he murmured.

"Sorry," said Fay. "It's my magic he's rejecting, isn't it?"

"He's not rejecting," said Eriol, "he's not in control. Talk to him."

Kurogane was already doing this. He took the boy's face in his, the way Sakura had done.

"You're alright," the warrior whispered, "it's alright, you're alright. You're back now. Slowly, now. It's going to be alright."

Tsubasa let out a keen, which he choked off, and then closed his eyes. He gasped, as if starving for oxygen. His legs flailed.

"Easy!" Eriol exclaimed. "Watch his foot!"

Tsubasa really had no gross motor control, because his arm went out and nearly poked Sakura in the eye. She caught his wrist and captured his hand in hers, squeezing in reassurance.

"Syaoran," Fay touched the boy's chest. "You're safe now. We love you. It's going to be alright."

Tsubasa opened his eyes, then closed them. His movements stilled.

"…" Touya looked at Eriol.

"Um, OK," the British sorcerer remarked, "that went better than it could have gone."

Kero floated over. "He's taking!"

" _Matte_ ," Touya exclaimed, "that's it?"

Tsubasa's muscles suddenly seized. Something exploded from his back; feathers in stripes of amber and green, ranging from emerald to jade, speckled with chestnut brown. Two giant, heavy wings knocked everyone back, and thumped down on the floor and against the wall. They were so big, they were larger than even Yue's.

Touya had stumbled back. Kero had hit the wall beside him. Sakura, Kurogane, and Fay had been swept to the floor. Yue had managed to duck. Only Eriol remained standing where he was.

"OK we did not add those," he stared, then looked at Sakura. She stared back, dumbfounded.

"…If you did not add those," Touya exclaimed, "then where did they come from?"

Sakura looked at the teen. "Tsubasa," she intoned.

Wing.

They all stared at the boy at the center.

"What. The. Fuck." Touya exclaimed.

 


	7. In Which Touya Meets Tsubasa and Surrenders to Emotional Investment

"This is bad," Eriol said, shortly before Tsubasa freaked out again, except his wings were banging into everything and everyone while he was casting magic. Yue, Sakura, Eriol, Fay, and Kero played the worst game of catch in the universe while Kurogane, Mokona, and Touya just tried to stay out of everyone's way. Eventually, the kid quieted down—more like exhausted himself. Surprisingly, the room was not a wreck, save for the burn marks on the ceiling.

"This is bad," Eriol said again, looking resigned.

"What is bad?" Kurogane asked.

Eriol pointed. "Those wings did not come from us. Or you. Or him," he pointed at Fay.

"They came from Tsubasa himself?" Sakura clarified.

Eriol nodded.

"Pretty sure Syaoran didn't have a pair of wings before," Kurogane glanced at Mokona.

" _Un!_ " Mokona exclaimed. "Syaoran never had wings!"

"Well, he was also a 'real boy'," Eriol contemplated the body.

"What's so bad about wings?" Touya raised his eyebrows. "I'd want them."

"It's not that they are bad," said Eriol, "it's that…" he sighed. "It's fine. I'll figure it out."

"No, please," Fay reached out. "You're troubled."

"Well, I'm pretty sure I've angered some people I do not want to anger."

"What do you mean?"

Eriol threw up his hands. "It's an indication of where he would have gone. And we kept him from going to keep him here." Eriol paused. "Though we've held him for a while. Maybe this is what's supposed to happen."

Touya thought of his mother. "He was supposed to be a  _tenshi,_ then?"

Eriol poked at a feather. "Some equivalent. Apparently so. But the vessel took, and there's no thunder and lightning outside. If we get in trouble, I'll deal with it."

Touya glanced at Sakura. "…What kind of trouble are we talking about?"

Eriol waved his hand, apparently dismissing the matter. "Don't worry about it."

"Will my sister—"

"She'll be fine. I'll deal with it."

Tsubasa was exhausted, and stayed deeply asleep. He was REMing like crazy, with his rapid eye movements going all over the place. He did not stay asleep for long, however. Fay, Kurogane, and Mokona were by his side when he woke.

He seemed blind, or at least unable to see, and unable to talk, but he reached out and grabbed Fay and held on for dear life, not letting go until exhaustion set in and he fell asleep again.

This cycled several times before he started sobbing in his sleep—the memories were consolidating, Eriol reported. He woke grabbing at his crotch and shaking like a leaf. Fay held him tight as Kurogane murmured in his ear. Tsubasa started when his wings knocked into the wall again; they were ridiculously big, and seemed very heavy.

"What, what…"

"It's alright," Fay murmured, cradling his head with one hand. "We're here. You're safe."

"Fay."

"I'm here."

"Kurogane."

"Syaoran!" Mokona chirped, as Kurogane squeezed the boy's hand.

"Was that a dream?" Syaoran whispered, trembling violently. "That was a nightmare?"

If only it were just a nightmare.

"I thought I died," the boy went on. "I could have sworn…"

"Shh," Fay hushed him. "You were very hurt, but you're alright now. You're going to be fine."

The boy broke out into cold sweat. "I feel strange."

"That's normal. It will pass."

For a moment, Tsubasa said nothing, just allowed Fay and Kurogane to hold him as he shivered.

"Where are we?" he whispered after a while.

"Don't worry about that for right now," Kurogane instructed. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel strange."

"That's alright," Fay murmured.

"Are you in pain?" Kurogane asked.

"…N…no," Tsubasa's eyes widened in wonder. "I…I had a really bad nightmare…" his eyes flickered to Touya, and then widened further.

"It…it wasn't a nightmare—"

"Syaoran—"

"What happened—" the boy's voice went high and shrill, and both Fay and Kurogane tightened their hold, Fay bending over to hide Tsubasa's face.

"Easy, easy, don't panic. We'll explain everything. Just wait a moment, slow breaths."

"Man," Touya grumbled, "my face isn't  _that_ scary."

"Fay—Kurogane—"

"We're here," Kurogane was careful not to touch the wings. "We're here."

"We're here," Fay agreed.

"Don't be afraid," Mokona encouraged, "we're here for you now. You're not alone."

Tsubasa calmed down momentarily, comforted by the close proximity of those he cared about, and still somewhat disoriented; it had to be a violent change. New body, new sensations, a pair of  _wings_ , which they still did not know what to do with. The panic drained him, and he fell asleep again, exhausted.

Fay pressed his forehead on top of the boy's head and started weeping. Kurogane leaned back, staring at the two.

"Fay, what's wrong?" Mokona asked.

Fay could not answer.

"It's really him," Kurogane said in a quiet voice. "They did it."

It occurred to Touya that he had just witnessed something of a miracle, and that both Fay and Kurogane had been holding their breath all this time, fearful that it would all come to nothing. Kurogane did not break down as Fay did, but he looked at the boy with an intense stare and his fists were clenched so that his knuckles were white.

Tsubasa had kept these two together, with Mokona. As much as Kurogane had painted a picture of three travelers who had little to do with each other, in truth, they really did depend on each other. Perhaps far more than they realized. Tsubasa's death would have broken them irreparably. Syaoran's decision had truly given them a second chance.

_They really care about him._

"Yay!" Mokona hopped up. "Everything's going to be alright now!"

* * *

That was a slight overstatement.

Tsubasa did  _not_ react well when he found out that this body was not his original. His inhibitions seemed to be pretty brittle, because he burst into tears and proceeded to lose his shit. Yue, who had left in order to allow the boy to bond with his original companions, had to be summoned back before Tsubasa hurt himself.

"Why would you do that?!" the boy shrieked, backing against the wall and flinching when he slipped, fell on his butt, and his wings knocked into everything. "Why would you do that to me?! You—you made m-me a m-m-monster!"

"You're not a monster," Kurogane tried to tell him, "you're not a clone—"

"What have I become?!" Tsubasa looked at his hands in horror. "This—what did you turn me into?!"

Yue paused to gauge the situation, listened to Tsubasa freak out, and then suddenly drew himself up; he was actually a little shorter than Touya, but he managed to look taller, and his form glowed as his wings expanded behind him. Tsubasa abruptly shut up when Yue glided forward; the guardian was ethereal and beautiful, and tended to have that effect on people. His magic expanded, and the world darkened into shadow, illuminated only by Yue's silvery figure.

"Syaoran, child" the guardian murmured, and held his hands out as he approached. "Brave boy. Do not be afraid."

"Who are you?" Tsubasa's voice was very small. "How do you know me?"

"I am Yue, little one," the guardian said tenderly. "I know you in any form." He bent down and Tsubasa allowed himself to be gathered up. Though Tsubasa's wings were bigger, Yue's were fairly large as well, and he swept them down to cover both of them, leaving only Tsubasa's wings exposed.

"Damn," Eriol murmured when he joined them to find Yue still shielding the boy, "Syaoran was worried about that, if you recall."

Touya did.

Despite Yue's presence, Tsubasa still found this all difficult to cope with. His body had been made a plaything for others and now just switched on him, and given his past with the clones and how a clone had stolen his very life and identity, it was not enough to just say that he got a new body and send him on his way. When it became clear that simple words were not going to be sufficient, Yue asked everyone to leave, including Eriol and Mokona, and especially Sakura.

"This might take a while," Eriol warned Sakura. "It's best if your husband stays asleep for just a little bit longer."

"I'm use to him ruining my plans," Sakura chuckled a little. "I'm so sorry for Tsubasa, though. He never catches a break."

"We don't catch a break either," Touya pointed out.

"You're ridiculous," Kero whacked Touya on the head.

It was a _long_ while before Yue called them back—several hours. Yue sent Touya a text, instructing him to take everyone out to lunch and go play with cats somewhere. By the time they returned, Tsubasa was wingless, and still looked very anxious, but he seemed more in control of himself.

"I'm sorry," he said to Fay and Kurogane. "I—I didn't mean to—I'm grateful for everything you've done for me—"

"Oh  _shut up_ ," Kurogane snapped, as Fay swept forward and physically shut Tsubasa up by embracing him tight enough to strangle him.

* * *

Touya had to go to work the next day. He had six cases and ended up finishing at eight-o-clock. The Whipple Man threw a hissy fit about one of the residents using his headlight. Touya also threw a hissy fit because all of the scissors were blunt. Life was good.

He went over to Yue's. He found him with Tsubasa, Kurogane, Fay, Mokona, and Eriol up on the rooftop. Tsubasa had his giant wings out; they really looked kind of heavy and unwieldy. Kurogane had hoisted Tsubasa onto a shoulder, and Tsubasa was flapping the wings, generating a lot of draft, but the effort looked incredibly laborious and the boy had to stop every three to five flaps to recover.

"Neither you nor Sakura had this problem," Touya frowned, perplexed.

Yue came over to stand by Touya. "His wings are different. Mine are magic. His are more flesh, somehow, and a lot heavier. It's hard for him to control as well, and he gets tired because he doesn't really have the muscles for them."

Touya frowned. "His pectorals? He's not moving his arms _with_ the wings."

"Something else. Not sure where, but they can move independently."

 _Weird._ Though having wings at all was already…pretty weird. Magic had a habit of not obeying the laws of science.

"So what's he doing now?"

"Trying some exercises to build these muscles, and coordinate control."

"Huh. Who thought of that?"

"I looked up youtube videos of baby birds doing this."

"…" Touya looked at the ninja, who was patiently still holding Tsubasa as if he did not weigh as much as a sixteen-year-old boy with a giant set of wings. "Why is Kurogane holding him?"

"Wings are too big. He kept slamming the ground with them. Any time he wants to actually practice, he has to jump up, and he has nowhere near enough stamina for  _that_."

"Huh." Good on Kurogane for playing Tsubasa's crutch. Kurogane never struck Touya as 'father' material, what with the giant sword and the general resting-bitch-face he tended to wear, but he was really taking all of these changes and necessary gestures in stride. Far better than Tsubasa, anyway.

"Still freaking out about his body and all?" Touya asked Yue.

"Not as much."

"What did you do when you kicked all of us out?"

Yue looked away. "He and I examined his body together."

Touya had to do a few mental gymnastics before concluding why this might be okay in Yue's case. "He was alright with you stripping him?"

"He wasn't initially. They had torn off his clothes, obviously," Yue's voice was low. "Syaoran's robes actually did a lot to make him feel safer, so for a while I just held him. He didn't really remember who I was. Didn't know my name, just knew I was familiar somehow, and that I had something to do with the Syaoran here. His mind is surprisingly clear on some points, all things considered."

"Hm," Eriol hummed.

"We ended up talking about everything other than his new body for a while," Yue went on. "He didn't want to talk about his past, didn't really want to talk about the Syaoran here either; he knows the Syaoran here is happier, is married to the Sakura here, and he's too anxious about his own future to want to know. So we talked about the politics of this world, about China, about the local town, the best places to eat. The Tokyo here. After he grew a little more comfortable, he finally asked what exactly I was; he could sense, like Fay, that I wasn't quite human. So I told him, and I allowed him to examine me first."

"…So he stripped _you_?"

Yue laughed a little. "I'm a guardian. It's rather pointless for me to be modest. Furthermore, he is a child, and children are meant to be curious. Stifle that curiosity and you get ignorance."

"He's sixteen. He's not exactly little."

"He's a child where it counts, and he's mine," Yue said warmly. "He needed the reassurance. I told him I was still different from him, but he needed to know what it was he could be, before he could have the courage to examine himself. Besides, Syaoran did that with me all the time when he was little."

"…Right, but Syaoran wasn't sixteen."

"Syaoran didn't do it at sixteen because he had already done it when he was six."

That was…kind of mind-blowing, actually.

"You two really were very close, weren't you?" Eriol murmured, tones filled with a faint wonder.

"He was my whole world," said Yue, "and for a time, I was his. I had been this strange being to him, a being of magic, a creature of legend—something dangerous and powerful, and yet someone he wanted hugs and kisses from. He wanted to know what I looked like, and I saw no reason to hide from him. It was, perhaps, a bit more intimate than a normal parent and child would be, but I am not a sexual entity, nor a normal parent."

"No," Eriol agreed, "it would have been inappropriate if you were a man, but you are an angel in most senses of the word. I'm surprised you allowed it, though. You were actually always averse to touch, in Clow's time."

"I did notice that, at the time, " Yue allowed. "but I did not mind his touch. Part of it was that he was so scared. His trust felt too valuable to lose. Some boundaries might have been crossed. After Fujitaka talked to Syaoran—and me—about sex"— _Oh Kami-sama—_ "I sometimes wonder if some of the liberties I allowed because  _I_ was not a sexual being were inappropriate because  _Syaoran_ still was. Still, he seemed to have turned out alright, and he wasn't a sexual being back then; he looked a few times and the novelty wore off and he stopped doing it. It was not like he was doing it because he had some kind of dark desire—he was six. And at the time it seemed rather pointless; I was already washing him and bathing him and examining  _his_ body, because I had no one else. The first year we were together, every time he got sick, he would wet the bed. When he got diarrhea he'd soil the sheets. He'd vomit all over me. He vomited all over me in the first days when we met. After getting acquainted with all the fluids his body could produce, why would I draw the line at something so innocent?"

Hearing about Syaoran's initial days with Yue always filled Touya with sadness, but he never knew this part of their past. There were certain signs of stress in pediatrics that tended to tug at Touya's heartstrings: growth retardation, bed-wetting after being potty-trained, alopecia, among others. These were all signs that a child was suffering profoundly.

"He must have been very sick," said Touya.

"It wasn't really the illness itself," Yue reminded him. "He had bad nightmares back then. Any little thing tended to push him over."

That…did not make it better.

"Must be different with Tsubasa, though," Eriol blinked.

"He wasn't as audacious and bold as Syaoran was," Yue allowed. "He's very shy and tentative, but otherwise…there's nothing to it. Tsubasa is…very innocent. Clearly no one gave him the talk."

"Oh  _Kami._ "

"That is the general impression I got from Kurogane and Fay," Eriol said grimly. "The entire time they traveled with their princess, Tsubasa never made a single inappropriate gesture. His spirit is very pure. What happened to him would have been especially damaging, in light of that."

"It was his first time, when they raped him," Yue said solemnly.

Touya winced. Not surprising, given everything.  _Damn it, gaki, you're really ruining my man-credits._

"Anyway, afterwards, he felt a little better about looking at himself." Yue stopped as Tsubasa's wings nearly knocked Kurogane over, but the ninja braced and the boy flexed and stretched his wings, taking a break. "His old body had been ravaged to the point where it was beyond salvaging, and he had felt it. The new one, he felt more comfortable in. No headaches, no vertigo, no 'constant pain'. It was a little different; it had none of his old birth marks, and none of the scars he had accumulated. The skin is soft, as we know, but otherwise it was his, and the longer time he spent in it, the better it fit to him. I told him," he raised his head proudly, "he looked just like my handsome son at his age, everything was in order, ten fingers and ten toes. A new slate, and he was beautiful like me."

"Like you?" Touya raised his eyebrows.

"He thought I was beautiful," Yue laughed. "I used all the tricks I got. Would be remiss if I failed to use one he actually handed to me. In any case, I told him that Kurogane and Fay cared for him so much, they begged for his life, begged for this, and his other self, my son, thought this was an appropriate way to give all of them another chance. He felt a lot better afterwards. The only thing was the wings, which neither of us really knew what to do with, but I started off by withdrawing my own, and it turned out he could fold or extend them as easily as I can. It's using them that's harder for him." He frowned. "I wonder if my son would be similar."

"Likely so," Eriol supplied. "But I suspect he'd have to die first, so I'm not curious enough to find out."

"…Right," Yue turned his attention back to Tsubasa.

They were not sure who got tired first, Kurogane or Tsubasa, but the two silently reached the mutual decision to stop the exercise for now. Tsubasa was so exhausted that he could not even stand properly. Fay had mentioned that in the past, Tsubasa would often persevere past the limits of his endurance. Clearly, that was a consistent attribute. Yue went forward and rubbed the boy's head proudly as the wings disappeared.

"It'll come to you," he promised. "You're getting better already. In the meantime, do you want to go flying?"

"Huh?" Tsubasa blinked.

"The other you use to love flying," said the guardian. "He'd ask me to go flying every night as long as the weather is good. It's somewhat cold, but the skies are clear and I think you'll enjoy it."

"But I can't fly yet." Tsubasa looked hilariously confused.

Yue laughed, and extended his arms. "Come here, little one."

The guardian showed off a bit during takeoff, which had Tsubasa shrieking in fright, but then the next sound that came out of him was pure, exuberant joy, quickly swallowed up by the night as the two of them disappeared into the distance.

"…I have never heard him laugh like that," Fay exclaimed in wonder.

"And he's flown before," Kurogane sounded just as mesmerized.

"It's Yue," said Eriol with a smile. "He knows how to make Syaoran laugh."

* * *

Tsubasa, who was 'with it', was very different from the fucked up mess that was Tsubasa in his original body. In many ways,  he was exactly like Syaoran, if Syaoran were less at ease and more twitchy. He was most comfortable with Yue, naturally, and seemed to like Eriol well enough, but he did not seem to know what to do with Sakura or Kero, and was very awkward around Touya.

For this reason, Touya chose to take a break from all this insanity and focus on his patients and his residents, one of whom was chasing after Kawasaki. After some thought, Touya decided to let him have at her, because she was a bore. He can make his own cabbage rolls, and if he really wanted, he could pull the big brother card and force Sakura to make them for him. Syaoran knows better than to stand in his way ( _"Sakura was mine before you,"_ he had said to Syaoran, to which Sakura had yelled at Touya to stop giving her then-fiancé a hard time. Syaoran had wryly acknowledged that Touya was right; a wise decision.)

He could not stay out of it completely, though. Yue occasionally needed some support ( _"Yue is mine,"_ Syaoran had said, and there was not even a 'before you' in question because Yue was still his, and was only Touya's when Syaoran and Yue both felt like it), which meant he did occasionally come across the uncomfortable Tsubasa once in a while.

Tsubasa's uneasiness did not exactly make Touya too happy, so playing the role of the older brother (and he always got stuck doing the 'responsible thing' while all the kids around him get to act immature), he went straight up to the boy one day, in front of Kurogane and Fay, who were chatting with Eriol and Kero about other worlds.

"You know, you don't have to be so nervous around me," he said to the boy. "It's not like I'm writing any evaluations on your potential to be a doctor."

"I'm not nervous," the boy admitted. "It's just strange to see you like this. The other versions of you were always…well."

"…" Somehow, it became Touya's turn to feel uneasy.

"Was I always mean to you?" he asked in dismay.

" _Iie._ Well, we were never close. You never liked me in either version."

Touya had to do a few more mental cartwheels to understand that. "Did you do something to make me dislike you?"

"I don't know," Tsubasa bowed his head. "But you would always let me do things anyway."

"Do what things?"

"Well, you kept me employed."

Touya frowned. "Huh. I didn't dislike you that much, then."

Tsubasa looked away. "You have a better relationship with the Syaoran here."

Touya paused for a while. "He's a good drinking buddy."

"He seems to have everything."

If nothing else, Tsubasa's intrusion into their lives really brought home how true that was. "He does have a lot. Most of it was due to Yue."

"Yue's one of a kind," Tsubasa said distantly.

He looked so despondent. Touya reached out and ruffled the boy's hair. This surprised the teen, and he flinched violently. Touya instantly regretted the impulsive action; this child had been raped. Even Yue was careful about touching him.

" _Gomen ne,_ " he said quietly.

"Sorry," Tsubasa said in turn. "I—" he sighed. "S-sometimes I wonder if this is all a dream."

Oh dear. More heart-to-heart talks. Touya was going to melt.

"Mokona is asking if I want to at least talk to Sakura. I don't know if I can."

"Talk to her?" Touya frowned. "You mean, you can call her across dimensions?"

"Mokona has the power to allow me to visit her," Tsubasa explained. "She's probably worried. We haven't touched base…since…"

"You should at least let her know you're alright."

"I—it—" Tsubasa looked at Touya plaintively. "I've never felt good enough for her, and…after what happened, I keep wondering if it would be better if she forgot about me. Found someone else. You didn't like me, and…and…I'm a nobody. I'm not even like Fay or Kurogane—Fay's a powerful court wizard, and Kurogane was a ninja, they were both  _somebody_ , and I'm  _no one_."

"You're sixteen," Touya scowled. "You might consider that the other-me didn't like you simply because you  _are_ sixteen. Or fifteen. Or however young you were before you left. Listen," he reached out this time so Tsubasa had some warning. "Come here, and let me tell you something. Lots of things look one way from one side when it's totally different on the other side. I'm a surgeon. On occasion I still have to talk to people, and I meet all these characters all the time. They come with their stories and they're all different ages—six years old, sixteen years old, sixty years old, and so on. Picture this: you have a sixteen-year-old girl. She's smart, but she's also kind of a dumb, because she's sixteen years old—sweet sixteen my ass, more like stupid sixteen. That's the dumbest age for girls, I swear. Anyway, now you have this teenage boy. He's nice, and pretty decent, for a sixteen-year-old, but he's  _sixteen years old_. Now look at me: I was sixteen years old once upon a time. I look back and I can't believe I made it past that year. The sort of stunts I've tried to pull—I see drunks and idiots come in through the emergency room and get hooked on ventilators for the same shit. You can't avoid it; that's just an age when you don't know what you don't know, and that's the worst kind of ignorance, because you throw caution to the wind. So I  _know_ how stupid sixteen-year-olds are. I  _know_ how they can't account for all the ways things go wrong; teenagers just don't have enough life experience to know how to avoid bad decisions, or handle a lot of questions that are more easily answered by true adults. So now I'm seeing this sixteen-year-old girl, who's dumb as fuck, and this sixteen-year-old boy, who at  _least_ had to be as dumb as I was when I was sixteen, and they're making eyes at each other and being all lovey-dovey. There's no  _way_ this would be good news. Why the fuck would I like you? You're an asshole!"

Tsubasa looked a little discouraged by this. "But you didn't mind your Syaoran."

"Well that's different," Touya allowed. "We nearly lost him, a long time ago. After that, it didn't feel like I was losing Sakura to this dumbass as much as I was gaining another sibling _._ In addition, he…"  _Oh Kami…_ "needed my own father to give him  _the talk_ , so I knew the two of them were going to be alright because they're clueless."

"…'The talk'?"

"Your parents never talked to you about sex?"

Tsubasa blinked owlishly at him.

Touya looked at the boy for a moment. His parents did not talk to him. And Tsubasa did not have a Yue to seek out a Fujitaka in order to give him the same spiel.

 _Kami-sama. His talk was the rape. That was his version._ That is all he knows.

He gently pulled the boy's head to him and kissed the chestnut locks.

"…Wh-what…"

"Listen to me," Touya touched his forehead to the boy's. "Don't worry about Sakura. Don't worry about the other me. Just focus on yourself at this time. Everyone else can wait.  _Daijoubu?_ At this point in time, you are the priority, to those around you and to yourself. Get better, get stronger, healthier. Figure out your wings, figure out Fay and Kurogane. And when the time comes, go home. Don't be afraid to go home. Don't be afraid to greet the princess or talk to her or let her care about you. And for sure, don't worry about the other me. I'll take care of that part. Alright?"

"How?" Tsubasa blinked again, his long lashes sweeping shadows. "You can't talk to the other you."

"Kid," Touya leaned away, "you need to learn to let the grownups take care of things for once. Trust me on this one, alright?"

Tsubasa continued to look at him skeptically. Touya had to give him a noogie.

"Ow!"

" _Gaki_ ," Touya grumbled. "Don't doubt me. You'll regret it."

Tsubasa looked up at him, and he seemed to struggle to figure out whether to feel hurt or not.

Kid probably cannot take a joke quite yet.

"You'll be fine."

Tsubasa looked down. "I'm not as good as your Syaoran."

"You're not as lucky. You're just as good." Touya did not like how his heart ached for this boy. Tsubasa was not even his Syaoran. "Yue wouldn't recognize you otherwise."

"I still don't understand…"

" _Kami-sama_ you're so annoying." Touya grabbed his hair. "What would it take for you to trust in other people for once?"

This time, Tsubasa did look hurt, so Touya grabbed his face.

"You're sixteen. You don't know yourself. But I knew you when you were sixteen, and I know you when you get older. Suffice to say, I know you better than you know yourself, and this goes ten times more for Yue. You're not supposed to understand everything yet. Let it go. Focus on yourself. On your well-being. Sometimes in life, you have to take a leap of faith. Stop worrying about whether you're good enough. Just concentrate on pulling yourself together and for once let other people handle the rest. Alright?"

Tsubasa looked down.

Well, Touya was not going to get through to him anyway.

"At least call me  _Oni-san_ ," he ordered.

"Um _…"_

"You can say it. O-Ni-San.  _Oni-san._ "

"Brother," Tsubasa said shyly.

So much for not getting invested.

* * *

"What's this Touya like?" Touya asked Fay, who was chopping up vegetables.

"Eh?"

"This King Touya or Prince Touya or whatever."

"He's a bit of a dick," said Kurogane, who was polishing his sword. It kind of bothered Touya a little bit, but Yue seemed unperturbed. The guardian had even said that between Kurogane and Touya, Touya had his fist planted in more guts. This was probably true, and did give Touya a little bit more confidence.

"He's just really protective of his sister," said Fay. "And he knows more than he reveals."

"If he's anything like me," Touya replied, "he does better with more information than less."

"I wouldn't know for certain," said Fay, "but based on our brief encounters, I would agree. Why do you ask?"

"Is he a good man?" Touya asked rather than answering.

"I think so. He just doesn't really like Syaoran. Some personalities don't mesh very well. But he knows that Syaoran is destined for his sister."

"Oof. That's rough." And would explain a lot.

"What's this all about?" Kurogane asked.

Touya made some popping noises with his lips as he wavered, because what he was about to do was something he knew Tsubasa would not appreciate, and very likely oversteps a lot of boundaries. Still, he thought about how Yue made the decision to have Syaoran accept Eriol's magic and simply told the boy to 'trust him', and how that turned out well. Children, he decided, sometimes needed to be treated as such, even if this pisses them off. "This King and I share the same soul. If he's what you say, I want you to tell him what happened to Tsubasa."

Kurogane and Fay both froze.

"Is that really wise?" the ninja asked darkly.

"Tsubasa's going to act weird," Touya pointed out, "and I'm going to notice, because I tend to notice these things even when I'm not a fancy king. And I'm going to want to know why, and I'm going to jump to the worst conclusions, and it's going to hurt Tsubasa and it's going to hurt my  _imotou._  Thing is, Syaoran is one of my best friends. I like to think I am one of his as well. So when you go back to the kingdom of whatever, tell him that it's on him. Even if he doesn't want to be Tsubasa's friend, I don't want the other-me to hurt him."

"You sure it's our story to tell?" Kurogane asked dubiously.

"You once told me that one of your regrets was letting Tsubasa make and face his decisions without any input," Touya stated. "For the record, I think you are absolutely right to regret that. Around here, teenagers aren't expected to make big decisions about medical treatments and the like without their parents. Grownups totally talk to each other about their children without input from the kids. Guess what: you're his parents. You're grownups. He's not. If you want to do right by him, you'll clear the path for him when you can. In this case, this involves getting the right adults in the know as well. At this point, other-me should be considered an adult, considering he's King and everything." He was probably as old as Syaoran.  _Waaaaaaaa! That's not good._ Syaoran was an idiot! But wise enough to get married. He should be fine. "Tsubasa might get pissed off at you but this isn't something he would be able to do, and he wouldn't know better if you run it by him. It's like vaccinating babies. Doesn't matter how angry they get or how much they don't like needles. Their wishes don't matter because they're fucking stupid."

"You sure the other-you wouldn't do the opposite of what you wanted?" Fay was actually much more cynical than Touya would have thought at first glance. "He might think that this is some evidence of that Syaoran does not deserve his sister."

"He's sixteen years old. Of course he doesn't deserve her. Even ours didn't. I did everything I could to scare the little shit. He knew I was serious too. He always told me and  _Otou-san_ what he and Sakura were doing and where, if they were running late. Because they're  _sixteen years old_. Tsubasa? He can wait. He still needs time to find himself. She still needs time to find herself. But he saved her fucking life. He's done all the proving he needs. You can't expect people to never get hurt; only dumbasses think that way. Tell him that Syaoran almost did not make it home. Tell him the exact, bloody, gory reason why. And tell him that he almost did not choose to come home anyway, because he didn't think he'd be welcome. You trust other-me with this and he'll care. Unless he's a total prick."

"I just said he's a dick," Kurogane pointed out.

"Well so am I," Touya rebutted. "Don't tell the princess: Sakura wouldn't understand, at that age, and Tsubasa wouldn't appreciate that, but you can tell Touya. And their parents.  _Otou-san_ was very involved in Syaoran's care, even here." Too involved, at some points. " _Oka-san…_ " that was one thing Touya was kind of jealous of. If only Nadeshiko were still alive, but maybe that would be one thing Tsubasa had that Syaoran did not, and…perhaps that was fair, in the end. "She's _Oka-san._ There's no need to explain further. Tell the adults, not the children. Children can't deal with  _shit_. But the adults will want to help. It's the nature of decent people. And then the two of you have a lighter burden because you're not alone."

Fay and Kurogane were thoughtfully silent.

"Trust me, I have a feeling," Touya pushed away from the kitchen. "My feelings tend to be right about things like these."

* * *

Wings were not the only things Tsubasa had to adjust to. Fay's magic was significantly more powerful than his original, and the boy had trouble controlling it. He had bad nightmares about the attack and the subsequent days after. Sometimes he still seemed horrified by the fact that his body was not the original; these were the times when Fay and Kurogane's reassurances were even more important. Yue remained present throughout, and helped the boy especially with his wings and his nightmares, but nowadays, Fay and Kurogane had gotten more proactive about caring for Tsubasa, which ended up being something the boy was really not use to.

Touya chose to go to work. He was starting to miss his own Syaoran, who was still locked away in stasis while Tsubasa continued to settle in. They sharpened the scissors, which was nice, and the hospital was getting a reboot electronic medical record: no more paper charts! This would be life-changing either way, but it did slow down everything when the system went live for the first time. The whole hospital was a mess, and everyone, from the doctors to the nurses to the techs to the aids, started losing their minds. Fortunately, no one died as a direct result of computer glitches, but that was still one of those awful adventures Touya would hold forever close to his heart to tell the numbskull new upstarts during interviews, along with all the other awful things he had somehow managed to survive over the years.

But all things considered, Tsubasa was quick study. He was also really determined, and would often push himself past the point of exhaustion. This was not exactly conducive to recovery, and with the weather and snow and general flu season, it was not long before Tsubasa got sick.

As the lone physician of the group, Touya got stuck being the family doctor.

"Why can't you do this?" he complained to his sister.

"I don't know medicine," she pointed out.

Fuck.

"This isn't like pediatrics is it?" Touya asked Eriol. "Babies shouldn't get sick in the early times, I remember, because their immune systems aren't developed enough, but he's not a baby."

"He's clearly sick because he's stressed," said Eriol, "and he's wearing himself out, because he's a stubborn brat, just like our Syaoran, and doesn't know how to take it easy."

"Right, but I'm just trying to determine if we should take him to the emergency room again, as if he were," said Touya, "because otherwise just fluids and rest would do the trick, but it's been years since I did pediatrics and I know in the early weeks there's something about illnesses being very bad." Son of a bitch. "I can't handle children."

Unlike babies, Tsubasa is able to talk and verbalize how he was feeling, so that made things somewhat easier.

"Just the sniffles, eh?" Touya extended his arm across the covers to rest around the boy's thin waist. Febrile to 38.5, rhinorrhea, cough, malaise and myalgias. For once, Tsubasa read the textbook; if this was _not_ viral, Touya was going to give up his degree. "Listen,  _Ototo-chan_ , you need to rest every once in a while. There aren't dangerous people here. We're not in the middle of a war. We have a few earthquakes every now and then and sometimes we get a tsunami, but you're here to take a breather. You're not on a mission."

"I  _am_ on a mission," Tsubasa pointed out. "I just failed. Sakura wanted to…to see her other self too, and I can't bring them back—"

"Forget about that. We can't get everything we want. Didn't this all start because some douchebag didn't know when to quit?" Touya reached forward to take the boy's hand. "Li Tsubasa. You are not a fair exchange for whatever it is you're looking for. Losing you just to get something you guys didn't have to start with, is  _not_ a reasonable price." Tsubasa's face contorted as tears welled up in his eyes.  _Kuso._ "Fuck, I'm not good at this kind of shit. Eriol, you do something."

"We're not the people he needs to hear this from," said Eriol.

Touya sighed. "Not helpful."

But Eriol had come to some kind of epiphany, because he pressed Touya's shoulder to indicate he was taking over.

"Child of Clow," He slid before Touya, who let go of Tsubasa so Eriol would have room. "You were victorious in all that needed winning. You failed at nothing that should have been."

Tsubasa sobbed. "You don't understand—it was my fault, I keep trying to correct—"

"I understand completely," said Eriol. "I am Clow Reed, and I love you, my son across time." Tsubasa looked up at him, wide-eyed. "It is time to stop paying the price for mistakes that are not your own. Li Tsubasa, you should go home. There is something waiting for you there."

Tsubasa shuddered, face flushed with fever and damp with tears. "I can't go home yet—I-I-I'm not right, I'm not—"

"Home is not a place you earn," said Eriol. "Home is a place that is there for you at your weakest. Family are people who shelter you at your lowest. And though we love you whole-heartedly, we are not this family, and this is not your home." He took the boy's face. "Do not go elsewhere. Go home. I promise, there is nothing to fear."

"…I can't—I can't go home like this—"

"Be brave, now," Eriol kissed him on the forehead, "and trust me. Your quest is not worth losing you. Their wishes are not worth losing you. That nearly came to be, and a profound loss it would have been. That is not what they prefer. Trust me on this."

Tsubasa sniffled. "It's because of your Syaoran, isn't it," he said bitterly.

Eriol shook his head. "Our Syaoran is safe. We are not worried about him. You are not thriving here. You will not thrive here, because you do not belong with us, as much as we care about you. Fay and Kurogane will be with you. They have sworn, through magic, to be by your side and care for you as one of their own. You will never be alone again. Rest now, and be assured that there is happiness waiting for you, and the past will be a tale of how you triumphed and survived."

He rested his hand on the boy's forehead, and Tsubasa's eyes slid shut. His shaking breaths evened out.

Touya watched as the sorcerer straightened.

"We're kicking him out?"

"We're not kicking him out. He's talking and thinking in circles and anything we say is meaningless to him because we're not the right people saying these things. He needs to hear it from his true family."

Touya blinked. "Is he ready?"

"He shouldn't have to be ready to go home," Eriol's gaze was hard. "As I mentioned, that's hardly the point of a home, is it? I'll take care of it."

When Hiiragizawa Eriol says he will take care of it, best leave it alone.

Touya sighed. "Good. I'm on call tomorrow too."

"You're  _always_ on call," Eriol groaned. "You picked a terrible job."

"I know," Touya groaned as well. "Should have been a radiologist. They could work from their fucking toilets."


	8. In Which Touya's Life Returns to Normal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost to the end! Please review :P

When the time came, Tsubasa had learned to fly. He was a vision in the sky; slender figure and broad wings that glittered iridescently in the light. It cramped his back and wore him out, but it was the first objective mark of triumph he had since arriving in this world. He was not strong enough to carry Fay and Kurogane, but neither man was interested in tiring the boy out. Yue taught Tsubasa a few tricks, but left most of it for Tsubasa to experiment himself. "Part of the fun is figuring it out yourself and inventing your own," he assured the youngster. "The hardest part is done."

When the time came, Tsubasa was no longer so tearful, but he was still not well; he was painfully thin and his eyes were hollow from stress, and he remained anxious and apprehensive of what awaited him. He sought a hug from Touya, who gave it to him willingly. He was no longer emaciated, but he was thin and awkward in that coltish way teenagers were, and it made him seem more vulnerable—this young, wounded heart that had gone through so much without adequate support. Somehow, he seemed younger and smaller than Syaoran had been at this age; probably because Touya himself is older than he had been at the time.

"I don't know how I will do it," he whispered.

"Do what?"

"He doesn't like me at all."

Touya ran his fingers through those brown locks, giving Fay and Kurogane a meaningful look. "Don't worry about that. Just be yourself."

When the time came, Tsubasa got gifts from Sakura: a different version of the afghan she had crocheted for their own Syaoran ("Didn't you have a thesis you had to write?" "Shut up,  _Oni-chan_ ,") and some chocolates.

"You'll love these, I think," she said of the latter.

Tsubasa proceeded to turn Touya's heart to goo by offering them to his two companions. This kid is even better than their own Syaoran; Syaoran never offered Touya any of his chocolate stash.

He got a surprising gift from Kero: a feather ("You can stick it in a hat," the guardian said) that was made of sun magic, and could be used to cast minor spells, in case Tsubasa ever ran out. Which he should not, given he had Fay's magic, but the gesture was more in the symbolism rather than the utility; if Tsubasa ever felt lonely and afraid, this was to remind him that he had people who still cared about him.

Eriol had no gifts. Which was a good thing, because Touya did not have gifts either, and he was starting to feel like a jackass for not bringing one.

The hardest thing for Tsubasa to do, however, was to say goodbye to Yue. The boy clung to the guardian for a long time and started crying for the first time in days.

"I don't want to leave you," he sobbed. "I'll miss you so much. I don't want to leave you."

It was hard for Yue too, who knew he was saying goodbye to a child he would never see again. But Tsubasa's destiny did not lie with him, and perhaps, if the Syaoran here did not exist, Yue would have wanted to join Tsubasa instead, but that was not the case.

Still, the guardian had lived for a long time, and knew what to expect.

"I'll miss you too," he said to the boy, hugging him tight, "but I know you will be alright."

Tsubasa shook his head.

"I know you," Yue insisted, "and you have a beautiful heart. You're going to be just fine, because you will not be alone. You were never alone. Look," and he turned the boy around to face Kurogane and Fay. "These two would give their lives for you," he said to the child's ear. "They fought for you and they would travel to the ends of reality for your sake. They were going to take care of you, as you were, until your final breath, and they offered their own essence so that you may live again. To them, you are their Syaoran, the only one who matters, and they will do a far better job than I ever can."

Tsubasa looked up at the guardian. "Yue," he whispered, still reluctant and upset.

Kurogane extended an arm to the boy. "Syaoran."

Yue silently gave Tsubasa a gentle push, and with that, the boy had no choice. Eriol followed a few steps behind, coming to a halt before the travelers.

"You got a second chance," he said to all of them. "This almost never happens. Take care of each other."

"Hm," Kurogane placed his hand on the back of the boy's neck.

"We'll do better," Fay promised.

Eriol looked at Tsubasa. "Be happy, little  _tenshi_. You'll be fine." He looked at Mokona. "Take them home."

"Alright!" Mokona exclaimed, the red jewel on its forehead gleaming as its ears went up.

* * *

"Oof!" Syaoran exclaimed. "This—is—glomping alright."

Touya stuffed his hands in his pockets and wished Tomoyo were around; the picture would have been  _amazing_.

"I'm getting him next," Yue told Touya, while Sakura continued to choke the life out of her husband.

"Wings, huh?" Syaoran remarked once everyone had a turn; his hair was all disheveled and he looked like he had just been doing something naughty. "Does that mean I have them somehow too?"

"I'm not curious enough to find out," Yue declared.

"It likely does," said Eriol.

"Well, it's nice that he left with something," Syaoran declared. "Also nice that he left. I was getting a little jealous of all the attention he was getting. My wife, my dad. He's gotten five-star treatment here."

"Aw," Sakura kissed him on the cheek. "Well, it's just you now. And I'm certain his well-being would only be good for you as well."

"I'm sure," Syaoran agreed.

They went out drinking.

"I'm kind of jealous," said Syaoran, after he downed his fourth shot of sake. "I'd like to learn how to make someone like Yue."

"What would you make him for?" Yue pointed out.

"Probably not a good idea," Eriol pointed out. "As I had said to Fay and Kurogane, creating new life is no trivial matter. It's as big of a decision as having a child, and the creating is far more difficult than the maintenance, as well as what happens once you're gone. You have to make all these decisions about life-span and purpose. You can end up causing a great deal of grief and heartbreak."

Syaoran nodded in concession.

"It was quite something, though. He had a belly button and everything!" Touya exclaimed.

"Of course  _that's_ the thing you focus on," Syaoran remarked wryly.

"Trust me," said Eriol, "your brother-in-law had all your parts covered."

"Typical," Sakura rolled her eyes. "You're so immature,  _Oni-chan_."

"I guess it is kind of weird though," Syaoran acknowledged. "One of the things that use to fascinate me was the fact that Yue did  _not_ have a belly-button."

Touya looked at Yue. "You don't have an umbilicus?"

" _Hn_. Thank you for sharing that with the world at large," the guardian gave Syaoran a glare.

" _Gomen ne._ " Syaoran looked a little horrified. "I think I'm getting a little buzzed."

"A little?"

"Don't worry. He's told us way more embarrassing stories about _you_ while you were gone," Touya patted Syaoran on the head.

Sakura laughed. "I guess _Kero-chan_ doesn't have one either, though I never thought much of it. Hoe!"

Touya and Yue gave Syaoran a little more of a hard time before stopping because the boy was becoming genuinely chagrinned.

"In any case, I don't know why that was the thing I found the strangest. I remember just being obsessed. I'd feel over that area as if I could find it by touch, somehow."

"You use to dig your finger in as if you were trying to make one!"

Touya's stomach was clenching so hard from laughter that he had to double over. Sometimes stories of little Syaoran were the  _best_.

"I kind of want  _Sakura-san_ to use the Return card so I can see all of this," Eriol remarked.

"This is so unfair!" Syaoran protested. "How come I don't get to hear anything embarrassing about  _Oni-san_?"

"Go ask Fujitaka."

"He wouldn't tell me!"

"It's because he's clueless," said Yue. "He doesn't think they're embarrassing so if you ask him for embarrassing stories, he can't come up with any. I know Touya tried to French-kiss his mother when he was four."

"I did not!" Touya was aghast, while Syaoran and Sakura burst out laughing.

"Oh indeed you did," Yue leaned on the table, "and you were apparently really bad at it, because you didn't know what was involved and pressed your teeth really hard against hers, and she complained that they ached for about an hour afterwards."

"You are totally making this up!"

"Now I know why you're still single," Sakura giggled.

"Oh shut up! I can't believe  _Otou-san_ told you that! In what context would this subject possibly be brought up?"

"When do you think French-kissing would be a subject to be brought up?" Yue raised his eyebrows.

"Oh  _fuck_ me."

" _Matte_ , why didn't I hear about this?" Syaoran exclaimed, delighted.

"It was after we let you go, I was thanking him for doing the favor because the only experience  _I_ had with any of this was when  _you_ tried to French-kiss me when you were seven."

"Wait a minute, what?!" It was Syaoran's turn to be horrified. "This never happened! When did I try to French-kiss you?"

Touya clapped his hands, laughing so hard that he nearly fell off his chair. Oh how the tables have turned!

"What is it with boys and French-kissing?" Sakura exclaimed. She looked at Eriol. "Did you try to do the same with your mother?"

"You're not drunk enough for me to answer that."

"Wait a second," Syaoran protested, "why was I trying to French-kiss you?"

"We were watching Casablanca and there was this scene. You had never seen anything like it before."

"How come I don't remember this at all?"

"You pushed me down on the bed because I was too tall," Yue went on, looking fond. "You didn't press your teeth down the way Touya did, just kept your lips on mine for a while and then decided it was boring."

"I can't believe…"

"This is  _amazing_ ," Sakura remarked.

"I don't remember this at all! This is not fair! Even when  _Oni-san_ does something embarrassing, I have it even worse!"

"You should know by now," Touya pointed at his hilariously red face, "don't try to one-up me,  _Li Syaoran-san_ , or you'll regret it!"

"Why were  _you_ trying to French-kiss your mother?"

"Some movie as well. Americans," Yue waved in dismissal.

"I can't believe  _Otou-san_ told you that!"

Sakura poured Touya a shot glass. "Drink and it will all go away."

"I need one too," Syaoran waved at her.

"Seriously," Eriol nudged Sakura with his shoulder, "you and me, movie night; little Syaoran and Yue moments."

"Oh! We can watch when they took photos of the hats!"

" _Iie!_ " Syaoran protested. "No movie night! No hats!"

"We should invite  _Tomoyo-chan_ ," Touya's dear sister ignored her husband to supply, "and she can bring her camcorder—"

"Ahhh!  _Iie!_ This not good!"

Yue reached over to ruffle his son's hair while the young man glared at him in betrayal.

By the time they went home, Touya and Syaoran both had trouble walking. Sakura and Yue supported Syaoran while Eriol supported Touya.

"We need a Loop card between the bar and home," Touya slurred.

"How on earth did you manage this throughout medical school?" Eriol wondered.

"I had good friends."

"That was good sake," Syaoran declared. "I am going to have such a hangover tomorrow."

"Me too. S'great."

"You two are idiots," said Sakura.

* * *

_Kami-sama,_ doing surgery while hung over really sucked. Touya kept his mask on to hide at least part of all the grimacing he was doing. He wished he had been an anesthesiologist, that way he could sleep on the job. At least the circulating nurse had a cute butt, and she also seemed infatuated with Touya. Touya had the computer turned to face him and the chair placed in between so he could get a nice view. Kawasaki was his anesthesiologist for the day, but she was hiding behind the sterile field, playing games on her cell phone, and his resident, a young punk of a guy whose hair was too long to fit in the male surgical caps, and so got stuck wearing the shower caps that all the women had to wear, kept blathering in his ear about some game of football that he did not want to miss that weekend.

He somehow made it through the day, making a mental note to never go drinking with Syaoran the night before a work day. Syaoran was staying in Tomoeda for a couple of months, because the stasis period was long enough that they had to excuse him from a semester at business school, and now he had nothing to do. He went out during the day with Eriol to go skiing, while Sakura got stuck working on the thesis she did not finish because she was crocheting the afghan instead.

A couple of days later, after a thirty-six hour call shift, Touya dropped by to see Yue and Syaoran; Sakura was still in class, and Eriol had left for England. Syaoran and Yue were watching a Chinese TV-series.

"Food," he demanded, dropping his bags.

"You're so pushy," Syaoran complained, getting up to heat some leftovers.

"What's with the nec fasc epidemic," Touya grumbled, plopping down next to Yue. "Might have to get Epidemiology to look into what's going on with MRSA. I got another one that I sent to the unit overnight. Fucking dude had an ejection fraction of fifteen. People need to stop eating tempura."

"Stop eating tempura! You doctors have a way of taking the joy out of life," said Syaoran.

"I'll stop punishing you if you stop punishing me. Fucking end stage heart failure.  _Kami-sama_. I told Miyamoto to put me in for five hundred yen: this guy's dying in the next eight hours."

"Sounds lovely. Not that I know what on earth you're talking about."

Touya fell asleep, because he did not understand any of the dialogue in the Chinese show. He woke up to find himself fully reclined on the couch. It was six in the evening. Behind the couch, Yue was making dinner. He heard Sakura mutter something in the bedroom; it sounded like she was on the phone. Syaoran was sitting on the floor, folding laundry. Half the magic of the most powerful magician to ever exist, and he still had to do chores the regular way. It made Touya question the point of magic, though at the same time it gave him a sense of satisfaction. Despite being strong enough to raise entire tsunamis, Li Syaoran was stuck doing the same shit all the rest of them were doing.

"I'm glad you're back," Touya said sleepily.

Syaoran looked up at him. " _Arigatou, Oni-san._ "

He was so at ease. Everything, from his easy smile, to the light in his eyes, the way his shoulders were not hunched over, how there was absolutely nothing timid or frightened in his posture and movements, pointed to the triumph that was their family in this world. But then he bowed his head as he focused back on the laundry, and Touya was reminded of a smaller figure, head also bowed, hurting so badly that his soul was practically screaming. He recalled the feeling of the younger Tsubasa, clinging to him, afraid to go home, afraid to face the people there. Sobbing to Eriol that he could not go back, broken the way he was.

"You know we're always here for you, right?"

"Eh?"

Touya sat up. "No matter what happens, you should never feel afraid to come back to us."

Syaoran paused, arms still extended, but no longer moving.

Touya waited a beat. "If something like that ever happens to you,"  _and I pray to the gods it never does,_ "I want you to come straight home to us. Don't ever feel you're not good enough to come back to us. To Yue, to Sakura, or to me."

_Don't ever feel the way your other self did. Don't ever think you're not good enough._

Syaoran looked at him, his eyes warm.

"Same to you," he said.

They exchanged knowing smiles. Syaoran did not ask questions. He had all the answers he needed, and so did Touya.

Life was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can someone clarify for me if Fujitaka is alive and the King of Clow Country at the end of TRC? Because that would make Touya the prince, right?


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright guys, a long one, as a reward for making it all the way here. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think, and thanks for sticking with me!

He was different.

Once, he would have started forward, taking point without second-guessing, particularly in a land such as this one, one he was familiar with and had hoped to return to. Now, Syaoran wavered, his skin crawling with dread, his stomach twisting in knots, and he could not have felt more exposed if he had scales instead of skin and horns on top of his head.

 _I shouldn't have come back_.

The royal palace stood ahead in all its majesty, with the gleaming rooftops and the wide, open courtyards. The guards were approaching to investigate the new arrivals. For the first time, Syaoran wanted desperately to hide.

He did not use to be such a coward.

Kurogane shifted forward, his tall back rippling under the cloak. He had his hands on his hips in a casual pose, Fay stood behind him, preoccupied with brushing dust off his trousers. Mokona was hopping up and down on Syaoran's shoulder, chattering in his usual enthusiasm, but Syaoran could not hear it over the rushing sound of blood in his ears. It was like his hearing had shut down, and all he could feel was the pounding of his heart, all he could see was the sight of those guards. Black dots bloomed before his eyes, and abruptly he felt ill and faint. Weak.

He squatted down. Kurogane turned his face to look at him from the corner of his eye, but the warrior said nothing. He sensed Fay step closer, though the wizard did not say anything either. Squatting made him feel slightly better, but his legs cramped and his head started swimming. He was forced to sit completely on the ground.

"Syaoran?" Mokona hopped on the ground. "Are you alright?"

Kurogane stepped forward and away from Syaoran. Fay remained behind. Syaoran closed his eyes. He could not afford to faint now, but the feeling was not passing. In fact, it was getting worse. He suddenly felt cold, as icy sweat beaded over his skin, and started shivering.

Fay's hands came to rest on his head.

"What's wrong, Syaoran?"

 _Everything_.

Kurogane came back and knelt down in front of him. "They're waiting," he said after a moment.

Syaoran wanted to just sit here forever. He felt like the last vestiges of his courage had died along with his old body. Now he was an imposter, a freak, a pale reflection of his old self, and he had neither the strength nor the will to keep fighting anymore.

Kurogane grabbed his hands. "Come on." The ninja stood and pulled. Compelled, Syaoran braced his feet, and allowed himself to be pulled up. The sudden elevation had him swooning, and he fell against Kurogane, who caught him and steadied him.

"Easy now."

"He alright?" asked one of the guards. Captain, it looked like. Syaoran even recognized him.

"Let's get him inside," Kurogane suggested, instead of answering.

"He looks very pale," Mokona remarked.

"Sorry," Syaoran managed. His own voice sounded very distant.

Kurogane surprised Syaoran by taking his head in both hands and pressing their foreheads together.

"We're here," the man said quietly. "Don't worry, alright?"

Fay pressed his hand on Syaoran's back from behind, and somehow this did make him feel a little better. The sick ebbed. But it returned with a new vengeance when they actually entered the palace, and he beheld the princess, auburn hair studded with jewels and pearls, bright green eyes and that delicate jawline, racing toward him. She jumped and threw her arms around him, and the force nearly knocked them over; he only kept his balance because he did not want to hurt her.

"Syaoran!" she cried, "I was so worried! It's been so long, and not a word!"

He should hug her back, but she felt so pristine, so beautiful, so innocent, whereas Syaoran's heart still remembers the feeling of that hard pressure stabbing into him, splitting into him, and the disgusting, burning flood of fluid deep inside him as the hairy body shuddered above, the hot, stinking breath in his face. The taste of urine, the ringing in his head. He was filthy, filthy and disgusting, and even this new body could not wash away that defilement.

He twisted, keeping his arms and hands out of the way. Shrugged, contorted, and pulled his body away. The princess let go, bewildered. Syaoran looked at those green eyes. Thought of Kinomoto Sakura, her more developed face, eyes full of laughter. Happiness. Her Syaoran could give her the life she deserved, but he, he could not even give himself a good life. And this princess was so child-like, so precious, a whole future still open for her.

He could not look away from the growing hurt in those eyes, but he backed away, like a turtle withdrawing into its shell, until he was behind Fay.

"Syaoran."

King Fujitaka pushed Fay aside. He looked very worried. Behind him and to the side were Queen Nadeshiko, who also looked concerned, and…this world's Touya, who was looking very nonplussed, but disapproving, as always. Dreamseer Yukito was on the other side of the king, frowning.

Kinomoto Touya, clad in blue-green scrubs, foul-mouthed and crass but always looking at Syaoran with a brotherly fondness. Hiiragizawa Eriol, calm and gentlemanly, sophisticated with his spectacles on and aristocratic poise. Yue, motherly and fatherly all at once, beautiful, divine, gentle, strong. Gone forever, and never his to begin with, just borrowed, for a time.

A hand rested on the side of his head, and Syaoran started violently—it all started with a hand to the head that slammed it to the wall, and when the bright flashes cleared they were already removing his pants and grabbing a hold of his scrotum, squeezing with a laugh as he screamed—

"Whoa there," Fay pressed his back, "don't fall now."

_I've been falling. I haven't stopped._

Then hands pressed to his face, and the king loomed in front of him. "Something's wrong with him," said the monarch.

"He's changed," the priest swept in from the other side. "Is he a clone?"

"No," Fay said, his voice as hard as steel.

"His soul is the same," the priest agreed, "but this body was not his original. What happened?"

"Son," said the King, "talk to me. Are you hurt? There was no word from you. We were worried. Are you ill?"

It took a moment for Syaoran to understand what was happening, and why the King seemed so concerned. Fujitaka. He once knew the clone, back when Syaoran had given it his heart. As King, he had no reason to care about Syaoran, but he remembered a time when he had been Syaoran's father, and taught the clone everything he knew about archaeology.

Was it like Yue? Did they just know him, because they recognized his soul? How come he could not recognize them back? Were they all being fooled? Was he fooling them?

"Father," the princess exclaimed, frightened.

"Let's sit him down," said the queen. "I do not like how pale he looks. Someone bring water."

They somehow moved him to a seat. He tried to shake off his feeling and behave like a normal person, but everything felt so strange. He had never been so weak, before. So cowardly. It was like he had become an entirely different person. He felt shattered, and then haphazardly put back together, and what everyone was seeing was a fake. Not the real Syaoran. Not the real Tsubasa.

The real Tsubasa was defiant to the last. After years of imprisonment, in the mercy of Fei Wong Reed, he had emerged, determined, ready to take back what was his. But then all it took was one day. One world, to show him how his body was not his own, how it could be made to bring him the greatest shame. And now he was daring to show his face here, to the royal family, and they all think he was the Tsubasa Li of before.

He would have to face everything that might have been, knowing that it was lost. This was even worse than learning about the world of Li Syaoran and Kinomoto Sakura. At least in that case, he never had any of it in the first place.

"Syaoran," Sakura was holding a cup. "Here."

Syaoran pushed the cup away, careful not to touch her actual fingers. "I'm going to be sick."

He ended up bowing over and  _not_ retching, but it was a near thing. Fay had stepped between him and everyone else, holding his forehead and bracing his back. Syaoran stayed absolutely still as his stomach rolled.

Kurogane's shadow fell over him.

"You want to stay with him?" he asked Fay.

"You sure  _you_ want to be the one?" Fay asked.

"I'm not as good at  _this_ as you are."

"You're not as good at  _that_ either."

"I don't need to be."

There was a pointed pause.

Syaoran tried to lift his head to tell them that he was better—he  _wanted_ to be better, and not the complete failure that he was, but the motion provoked a heave from his stomach and he had to bend down again before it all came up.

"Alright," said Fay.

"Is he sick again?"

"Nerves," said Fay. "I'll handle it."

He sensed Kurogane retreat, but the priest approached, his robes sliding past the seat.

"What happened to him?" the fair-haired man asked, sounding aghast.

Priest Yukito had great powers, including Sight, the ability to send individuals across dimensions, and other elements of moon magic. He could also see spirits, and could probably see Syaoran's. The boy drew up, alarmed, but Fay cut between them, facing the priest.

"I'd appreciate if you can give us a moment."

There was a long silence.

"Let me know if you need anything," said Yukito.

"I will."

With that, the priest turned and left. Syaoran looked around in a daze. The others had left, somehow. They were alone in the corridor.

Fay sat down next to Syaoran, who started to hyperventilate.

"I can't do it," he whispered, shaking, "I can't. I'm trying but I can't—"

Fay enveloped him in an embrace. "It's going to be alright—"

"I can't do it, Fay, I need to get out of here. I can't face them—"

"Give them a chance—"

" _No—_ "

"You're braver than this, Syaoran—"

"No I'm  _not!_ " Syaoran shuddered. "I can't—they took it—I stopped fighting back—I didn't—I didn't even know I had to defend myself…I couldn't—I couldn't defend myself—"

"Hush. You're not there anymore."

Syaoran shook his head frantically. "I couldn't defend myself."

"I'm so sorry." Fay's voice sounded rough.

"It hurt."

"I know."

And then his nerves really snapped. His wings spread out in a  _whoosh_ , and he was making for the main hall.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Fay grabbed him around the waist, pinning his arms down, but his wings were still free.

"I have to go—"

"No. Syaoran, down. No flying—"

Syaoran beat them anyway, but he could not catch enough air with Fay in the way.

"Syaoran, you can't fly. Just calm down—"

"I can't stay here—"

"You're safe. Nothing's happening, nothing's going to happen." Fay pressed Syaoran's head into his shoulder. Syaoran beat his wings once, twice, and then again, before stopping.

"Don't run," Fay said gently, lowering them down. "Don't hide. There's nothing to be afraid of. We're here for you. So are they."

He was not as soothing as Yue; it seemed no one could be. But his patience eventually quieted Syaoran's panic, and he could think clearly again. Once he could, he wanted to sink into the ground out of sheer humiliation. He did not even greet the royal family properly; he just shut down.

What good was he?

"Uh," he heard Touya remark.

"Oh, by the way, he has wings now," said Kurogane. "That wasn't planned either, but he's figured out how to use them. Fay, why are you two on the floor?"

Syaoran snapped his wings back. The King, Queen, and Dreamseer were all approaching after Prince Touya, who wore a look Syaoran had never seen before. At least not on this Touya.

"Let's get him upstairs," said the queen, while the prince reached down to grab Syaoran by the arm. Syaoran flinched.

"Watch it," Fay snapped. "Don't  _touch_ him like that."

The prince tugged Syaoran to his feet smoothly and without hesitation. "I know him better than you. He's not some delicate flower."

"You don't even know yourself, let alone him. He's not a piece of trash either," Fay warned.

"You think I'd touch a piece of trash?" and Syaoran found himself gathered somehow in front of the prince, who had a hand over each of his shoulders and pushed.

"Up you go. I don't want my sister to see you like this. She'd be intolerable."

"Don't do that," Fay snapped.

"I want to talk to him."

"You get permission from me first." There was a crackle of magic.

"He was ours before you ever came along," the prince snapped right back.

"Touya," the King remonstrated.

"Fine. I promise, I'm not going to bite him. I'll hand him back to you in one piece, I promise."

Syaoran was so confused. "What—"

"Wait a moment," the king told his son as Syaoran was pushed past. They came to a halt and the king moved in front of Syaoran. He stopped, and looked down at the boy with a grim frown.

It was confusing on many levels, to look into those eyes and see his sovereign and his father, all at once. Syaoran did not even know what to call this person.

"Your Majesty," he finally managed.

The king's face hardened. He reached out and pulled Syaoran to him by the arms. Fujitaka had, as an archaeologist, a way of making the clone feel safe and surrounded in his hugs, which Syaoran always attributed to the fact that the clone had been a lot smaller before the archaeologist passed away. He did not expect to feel the same feeling now, when he was sixteen and Fujitaka was a king. And he had no idea what the embrace meant, because the king said nothing, just held Syaoran for a while, similar to how Yue would just hold him so that he knew the guardian was there. After a long time, the older man let go and stepped back, standing next to the queen, who looked upon Syaoran with an inscrutable expression.

The prince's hand pushed between his shoulder blades. "Up you go," said the prince.

* * *

The prince had Syaoran sit on a bench on a balcony while he remained standing to look over the garden, something that really did not sit right with Syaoran, but every time he tried to get up, the prince would shove him back down. The man seemed angry, but he did not speak and did not look at Syaoran for a long, awkward period. Above, the sun shone bright gold, and the garden was filled with birdsong, resonating from the trees and bushes.

Despite waiting for it, Syaoran was still startled when the prince spoke.

"I hate you."

Syaoran was both surprised and unsurprised. Seemed like his life was filled with a lot of those moments, lately.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness."

"Shut up," the prince snapped. "Don't talk until I say you can. You've always been annoying. Every time I look at you—I find you despicable. This little nobody shows up and becomes all my sister ever talks about. My sister is the best person in the world.  _No_ one deserves her. Not you, not some fancy prince in the outlying regions,  _no one_."

Syaoran's mouth fell open. What on earth was he supposed to say to that?

The prince then turned his face aside. "No one deserves you either," he said in a quieter voice, tight with control, "and if I ever get my hands on those bastards that did this to you, I will rip them apart myself."

It took a moment for Syaoran to understand what he was talking about, and a new horror flooded him.

"Kurogane," he realized, and he felt a rush of cold. That was what he had been talking about with Fay, while Syaoran was stupidly having his fit. "He told you." He shot to his feet, and the prince violently shoved him back down, so hard his back slammed against the back of the bench and knocked the breath out of his lungs. Prince Touya planted his hand on Syaoran's sternum to keep him down.

"He told us, yes."

"He had no right…" he was so aghast that he could not even feel anger.

The prince loomed over him. "You were gone for  _months_. No word, no notice. Yukito had a vision of you leaving and we didn't know  _what_ to think because if something had happened to you, your stupid friends should have let us know.  _Some_ word.  _Something_. My sister was beside herself. Tell me, brat, what lie were you planning on telling us to explain this?"

He was looming over him, and a shadow covered Syaoran's brain. Foot at his neck, choking him as it crushed his windpipe. A kick to the temple when he tried to grab the ankle, and the great big brute obscured his view of the sky as cold metal impaled upwards.

The pain was dull. It was a memory. His body bore no scars from the trauma. There were no suture marks over his belly. No scorch marks on his thighs. The vision faded, and he saw the prince still looming over him, hand on his sternum, but waiting. Syaoran was shaking. His skin was clammy with cold sweat. He felt weak.

"You didn't use to be afraid of me," the prince said, hand still pressed.

Syaoran did not use to be afraid of very much. Now it seemed like every little thing reminded him of how helpless he really was.

"Did you really think we wouldn't find out anyway?"

Syaoran was scared to even breathe. He wanted that hand off him, even though logically, Syaoran should be able to push it off. Blast it off with magic. But some miswired instinct locked his limbs—when he had tried that, every time he summoned a spell they would kick his head or slam his skull into the ground, into the wall, until Syaoran was in too much pain to dare to move for fear of incurring more wrath.

"What do you want from me?" he whispered.

"Or perhaps you were planning to leave," the prince ignored him, "and let us think that you abandoned her. You didn't think you could come back. You didn't think you deserved to."

"I understand that," Syaoran tried.

"Shut up. You understand nothing." The prince loomed taller, and Syaoran practically quaked in terror. " _You_ don't choose my sister.  _She_ is the one who chooses you. That means you belong to us. Do you hear me? You are ours. I don't care what happens out there. I don't care if they mutilated you down to the  _bone_. You take those pieces hanging around and you  _crawl_ back to us and you let us put you back together. You  _don't_ get to stay away. And if you  _ever_ have the audacity to die again before my sister does, I will bring you back to life just to redesign your stupid face. Are we clear?"

Syaoran had no idea what on earth the prince was talking about, but he had reached the limits of his courage. "Yes," he gasped, tears leaking from his eyes, "yes, Your Highness, please—"

The prince shoved off him, but before Syaoran could feel relieved, the older youth grabbed Syaoran and seemed to try to squeeze the very life out of him with his arms.

"I hate you," the prince hissed in his ear, "I hate you for being the one she loves more than anything in the world. I hate you for being the one who can protect her when I can't. I hate you for being the one meant to save her. I hate you for being the one who saved all of us. I hate your stupid little goody-two-shoes character. You strut around being better than all of us and you don't even know it because you're a stupid little brat, you don't need anyone, you don't need  _me_ ," he grabbed the back of Syaoran's head to shove it closer to his shoulder, "you make me  _sick._ You get hurt like that and you have the  _gall_ to  _die_ , to  _leave_ , to  _hide_ from us. Listen to me carefully. This is what's going to happen, Syaoran Li. You're going to stay  _right here_. You are going to take what we give you. You belong to us, and you will do what I tell you to do. Am I understood?"

Bewildered, Syaoran stammered, "Y-Your Highness—"

"Brother!" the prince said loudly into his ear.

_What?_

He was jerked back, and the prince's hands clapped over the sides of his head. "Your brain is not injured anymore. You don't have that excuse."

Syaoran blinked rapidly. He could not—that could not possibly—

The prince glared at him for a moment, eyes flickering, before pulling Syaoran close to him again. This hug was gentler.

"You're the only one who comes close," he said to Syaoran, "and we're not letting you go. Not for this." He pressed his lips to the top of Syaoran's head, just like Kinomoto Touya once did and then pressed his temple against Syaoran's. "You were my father's son, once, in all but blood. That makes you my brother in truth. I take care of my own."

He held Syaoran for a moment, before letting go and clapping a hand harshly on Syaoran's nape. "Let's go back down before your  _mothers_ start clucking."

Dazed, Syaoran could only follow his lead.

* * *

It was not what he expected.

Fay and Mokona chatted with the King during lunch while Kurogane and the prince squared off in some kind of dominance contest consisting mainly of glares and words hidden inside words. The princess wanted to talk to Syaoran, but her placed got usurped by her mother, of all people. The queen had Syaoran sit beside her and loaded his plate with this and that. Syaoran sat there, feeling too overwhelmed to eat, too scared to lift his eyes in case he made eye contact with the princess.

The queen reminded him of Kinomoto Sakura. That same motherly kindness, whenever Yue had to step away. This meant the princess would grow to be like her mother, he knew. It made sense. What did not make sense was how they were behaving to  _him_ , bits of kindness and affection that were too fast to give him a warning and too fleeting for him to pull away.

He passed through the day in a daze. At one point, the king hugged him again; this time, he wept as he crushed the boy to him. Syaoran did not understand why; he was a king, and only became the clone's father because of Syaoran's wish, and the disasters that followed. There was no reason for him to feel anything but anger towards the brat that caused all this trouble, but no one said anything, and the king's sobs grew more and more anguished the longer Syaoran remained unresponsive. He rocked Syaoran's body and kissed him on the forehead. Behind them, the princess watched, face pale and eyes wondering.

No one had told her yet.

Syaoran wished he could take away the hurt on the king's face, but he did not know what to do.

He was exhausted towards the end of the day. The princess stopped trying to approach Syaoran, which the boy met with a mix of relief and dejection. Fay asked if they could retire, which was granted, and they were shown to their individual rooms. Syaoran told the handmaidens to leave and stood in front of his bed for a long time, considering that this was the first time in a long while that he was going to sleep alone. Yue had always held him, ever since he woke up in this body. Even before, apparently, when Syaoran had been a weeping mess, hardly worth defining as a human being.

Yue was gone now. Syaoran left him. There was no way he could stay anyway, because there was another Syaoran, a better version of him, and they were all waiting for him to leave so they could get him back. And Syaoran was alive because…that other Syaoran chose to keep him alive.

All at once, rage boiled in his veins. He looked at his hands and wanted to tear the new skin off.  _Why bring me back? Why can't I take the easy way out for once?_ That moment of peace, he had felt twice already. He was not afraid of death. He was planted on his face, and the iron rod was deep within him, and he felt the world start to fade. The pain started to fade. After what felt like an eternity of agony, long past the point where he could no longer even brace himself for the torture he knew was coming, it was finally ending. But then it came back, and the  _doctor_ was there, scrub cap on and mask around his neck, and his head hurt and he wanted to throw up and he never wanted to stop throwing up. Yue's touch was the only thing that brought any relief, and one day he was cradled in the arms of this being, this being he did not really know, but who was so kind, so gentle and loving, and Syaoran had been swimming in sick, the world would not stop spinning and his head would not stop pounding, nothing made sense and even thinking hurt his brain, when it all faded again. Faded, until he took a breath, and the new lungs expanded and it  _hurt_ , sharp and deep.

But even then, the world of Kinomoto Sakura was a reprieve. They did not know him from before. Had nothing to do with him, other than loving someone who shared his face, and he did not have to compare himself to the old Tsubasa, the old Syaoran who could face the likes of Fei Wong Reed without flinching. Now, he was here, where everyone knew him, and he could never be the person they knew, never be the person they needed, because he was ruined, he was weak, soiled and pumped dry, and everything was a mockery of who he had once been, the dreams he once thought he was capable of achieving, the future he was once capable of chasing. The young maiden he once hoped he might deserve.

_"Syaoran?"_

It was the princess. Syaoran stared at the door that divided them. He blinked, and realized his cheeks were wet. He was sobbing and did not even know it. His breath came out in high-pitched gasps. If not for the closed door, she would have heard. 

 _"May I come in?"_ she asked.

 _She can't know_ , was Syaoran's first panicked thought, and he went and locked the door in a blink of an eye.

 _"Syaoran?"_ she sounded bewildered and hurt. _"Syaoran, please. I know something happened to you. I know something horrible happened. Whatever it is, you don't have to hide from me…"_

"Princess," Syaoran whispered, pressing a hand against the door, "please, leave."

_"Syaoran—"_

_"Your Highness,"_ he heard Fay murmur. There was a moment of silence, before a gentle knock on the door.

_"Syaoran, may I come in? She's gone."_

Syaoran hesitated, but Fay and Kurogane had both seen him at his worst. He unlocked and opened the door.

But Fay was not alone.

"Syaoran," the priest murmured, and stepped past the door. "Her Majesty the Queen asked me to come check on you."

Syaoran blinked. "I'm fine."

His face could not be any wetter. This could not be any worse.

"He's exhausted," said Fay.

Syaoran was.  _How did he know?_

"Why didn't the servants help you get changed?"

"I told them to leave," Syaoran wiped his face.

"You should change first," said the Dreamseer.

"Do you need any help?" Fay asked.

"I'm not a baby!" Syaoran snapped, suddenly fed up. "Please, leave me alone."

"We'll do that," the wizard said easily, and patted the nightclothes on the bed "but get changed first. We'll come back."

"Don't come back."

Fay cupped the side of his head. "Just for a moment. We won't stay long, I promise."

The two of them left before Syaoran could get his thoughts in order.

He stared at the bed, the folded clothes. He recalled Yue's tenderness, how the guardian removed his own robes because Syaoran was terrified of seeing what his own body looked like. He allowed Syaoran to stroke his white wings, to feel the joints of his elbows and that flat area of his stomach where there was no navel—that was odd, though he supposed it made sense. Yue had extended Syaoran's own arms, showed him where his wings connected to his back, and it was the first time in a long time Syaoran did not feel like discarded trash. This body was clean. Untouched. Yue called him beautiful. And he put the robes back on to cover and protect the new skin and flesh.  _This use to belong to my son, though he outgrew it,_ the guardian had said.  _You wear it as well as he did, for you two are the same._

_Yue._

He looked to the window, and a thought suddenly occurred to him. The window was large—enough that he could fit through. They said Hiiragizawa and Kinomoto Sakura did not design this body with wings; the wings had somehow come from his soul, something Syaoran found a little bewildering, considering he never had it before. But maybe he grew the wings because he was  _not_ supposed to come back here. He could fly. High in the air, all his troubles felt far away, and he was beyond judgment, beyond his past, beyond the reach of any who might hope to catch or hurt him. That first evening, Yue had taken him to the radio tower, where they sat in the cold, Yue's great wings surrounding him to keep him warm, and the people below were so small. It was the first time since the attack that Syaoran had felt happiness.

He went to the window. The night air caressed his face when he opened it. Above, the stars glimmered, far brighter than they were in Tomoeda. The moon shone, silver and pale, like Yue himself. He extended his wings while keeping his eyes on that white orb, which seemed to beckon to him like a beacon. It was mesmerizing, and he could not even blink for the wonder of it.

There was a knock, and the door opened; Syaoran forgot to lock it to keep them out. They entered before Syaoran realized he was losing his chance. He tried to climb out before they reached him, but they were fast; Fay had his arms around Syaoran's waist and his head in a flash, and tugged him back in. Syaoran flung his wings out to balance, but Fay tipped him so that his center of gravity was off and he was forced to lean on the mage.

Then, Priest Yukito pressed both hands over Syaoran's eyes. Syaoran did not even have a chance to cry out before everything went quiet and dark.

* * *

When Syaoran woke, it was morning. He was in bed, in the nightclothes. Someone had changed him while he was unconscious.

The thought made him sweat, and he quickly shied from pursuing it further.

His wings were gone, and Mokona was dozing on the pillow next to his. The creature hopped to when Syaoran turned to look.

"Syaoran! Good morning!"

Syaoran stared.

His old robes, the ones from Tomoeda, were gone. There were new ones folded on the bedstand.

"Try them on!" Mokona exclaimed. He was very curious as to how Syaoran would look. He bounced around the room when Syaoran finally changed. They were fine brocade and a little stiff; new, it appeared. Though the cuts were the right length, even if the fit was rather loose, he felt uncomfortable, but he could not exactly leave the room in nightclothes.

As soon as he left the room, a manservant was there to guide him down to the dining hall. Syaoran regretted not going for the window; perhaps if he had gone that way, he could leave the palace altogether and…disappear.

Kurogane was engrossed in some kind of conversation with Fay as the manservant approached. Fay pulled out the chair next to him and took the role of the queen to load Syaoran's plate at the table. The princess watched in silence, while her brother dug into breakfast, ignoring everyone. The King also watched Syaoran.

Queen Nadeshiko was absent.

He still could not eat very much. His stomach felt tight and tangled. He wanted to fly, and all but ran from the table, but the prince stopped him.

"You," he snapped his fingers at one of the servants. "Take him to the training yard."

The training yard?

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Are you certain—"the king began.

"I'm probing, that's all." The prince looked at Kurogane. "You can join us, if you want. Keep an eye on him. He tried to bail last night."

Kurogane looked at Syaoran, and then at Fay. He frowned, but said nothing.

Syaoran was starting to feel like a prisoner. He opened his mouth to ask the prince what they were doing in the training yard, but the prince had whirled around and was striding away in long steps. The servant came to Syaoran's side and bowed low.

"Sir," he extended a hand to gesture at the way.

Touya, both as prince and as king, trained often in combat; he enjoyed it, and was good at it. Syaoran had a suspicion of what they might be doing, but Kurogane seemed unconcerned. He looked at the collection in the armory with approval, even taking some weapons off the stands to test their balance. They headed out, where guards and soldiers were training, fighting dummies or sparring with each other. Syaoran looked longingly at the sky; he had the mind to just take off and leave, but his wings were so big and his jump was still so poor that it would take too long for him to gain enough altitude.

Prince Touya strode in from the opposite door and threw something at Syaoran. Syaoran wanted to duck and cover himself, but some old instinct had him reach out to catch the object instead. It was a sword, still sheathed.

"Mark!" the prince yelled, and his own blade was flashing towards Syaoran's face. Syaoran dodged, staggering back, heart hammering in his chest like a rabbit's.

"You can't run forever, little lamb. Fight back," the prince spat, and struck again. Syaoran ducked and scrambled further to keep some distance between him and the older man.

The prince spun the sword in a few twirls, to show off and look intimidating. Around them, the other men cleared out, some looking confused, others looking intrigued.

"This what you were doing when they assaulted you,  _brat?_ " He advanced, his posture loose. "No wonder they got you. Did you even hit back?"

He lunged. Syaoran dodged again. His limbs trembled. He opened his mouth to beg the prince to stop, but he was already out of breath; this body had not been conditioned the way his old one was.

"Come on, that's not going to work." The prince turned away for a moment, but then swung back with a flurry of blows. They were too fast to dodge; Syaoran was compelled to block this time. His muscles felt heavy, slower than his reflexes would order, and it was not long before the prince landed a blow, hilt of the sword right in the stomach. Syaoran stumbled, fell on his rear. The prince turned away, swinging his own sword idly rather than pressing, while Syaoran struggled to get his feet under him to stand again.

"You're getting tired," the prince drawled. "If you always stick to your starting strategy, you're going to lose."

_What on earth am I trying to win?_

The prince doubled back with another flurry of attacks, which Syaoran blocked until one got through again, knocking him on his side. He was so exhausted that he could not struggle to his feet immediately.

"Pathetic," the prince spat, striding idly while waiting for Syaoran to get up again. "Are you really that desperate for a beating?" His voice became thoughtful. "Maybe you wanted it. Huh. Was that it,  _brat?_ You enjoy being flat on your back? Did you like feeling what  _real_ manhood is like?"

Shock flooded his nerves, followed by rage. All logical thought fled his mind. He was on the ground, screaming bloody murder as rough hands bent his legs at the hips and knees. He was shooting magic from his fingertips even as they slammed his skull into the ground. He had brought all of his power to bear, and if that was not enough that did not mean he had not given his all. Fury powered his muscles, soft and slack from being new and being ill, but it condensed inside him into something like a ball of determination. His sword flashed toward the prince, faster than an arrow. Prince Touya parried, struck, and Syaoran parried in turn. The side of the royal blade struck the side of his face, but he did not even feel it. He swept his own, flung his body forward, pushed out with his palm to parry the oncoming sword, then kicked high, just as Seishirou once taught his clone, and Syaoran had learned through his left eye.

Prince Touya stumbled back as his body turned, then fell on one knee, bracing himself with his other hand. Syaoran raised his own sword to deal the killing blow, but a thick arm abruptly wrapped around his neck, as the opposite hand grabbed at his wrist. He was bent over backwards and his knees kicked out under him.

"Drop," Kurogane ordered in his ear. "You're alright."

His heart was racing, and he seized against that arm around his neck, but Kurogane did not let go.

"You're alright," the ninja said again.

Prince Touya stood and turned around as Syaoran's struggles eased. He was wiping at his lip, which was bleeding. He looked down at his reddened fingers, then at Syaoran.

 _I did that._ He just kicked the prince in the face. In front of everyone. Syaoran dropped the sword in shock.

"Heh," said the prince, looking down at his soiled hand again. "Skin and bones and he's still got it." He turned to the rest of the men in the training grounds. "You all watching?" he demanded. "Sixteen-year-old runt, sick for months, skinnier than your pinky finger. He can beat you all in a fair fight. Saw that? Get back to work!"

Bewildered and exhausted, Syaoran sagged helplessly against Kurogane, who shifted his hold so that he was no longer restraining Syaoran but was holding him up.

"What…"

"You're fine," Kurogane stated.

The prince approached then. His lip was bleeding again, but he did not notice. The guards around them were reluctantly starting to train again, though some still looked sideways to see what was happening.

Kurogane braced Syaoran as the prince came to a halt before him. Prince Touya studied him, then smiled.

"There you are, feisty thing," he remarked, and something in his tone sounded a little like Kinomoto Touya. "I see it in your eyes." He looked at Kurogane. "Take him inside."

Syaoran could only stare.

Kurogane pulled at his arms to turn him around. "Let's go," he said.

_What just happened?_

* * *

Kurogane took him to the healing quarters. On their way, they ran across the Dreamseer, who rolled his eyes and led them to his chambers to get salve to rub over Syaoran's swelling face.

"His Highness's methods can be questionable at times."

"I allowed it," said Kurogane. "And he passed."

"That was a test?" Syaoran blinked. "He  _wanted_ me to kick him in the face?"

"You kicked him in the face?" Priest Yukito laughed.

"I had told him that any injuries he inflicted, I would have to return," Kurogane said casually. "He agreed as long as Syaoran did not even it out."

"I'll say," said the priest.

Syaoran jerked away when the priest extended his hand to rub the salve on. "How is this funny?" he demanded, and looked at Kurogane, a curl of hurt twisting in his heart.

"Syaoran," the priest reached with his clean hand to turn the boy's face back to him. His countenance was grim again. "You scared us yesterday."

Syaoran blinked. "What did I do?"

The priest's eyes flickered over his face, and he raised the other hand to rub the salve.

"You were always this bright, shining light," he said. "It gave us hope. You were unwavering, steady, even if you were not the strongest in magic or in combat. Then, after months of silence, you come in, small, wounded, your light feeble and your entire being radiating pain and sadness. You looked at us as if you did not even know who we were. Kurogane told us that you died, more than once, and the people in the other world brought you back to life, but you slipped away without warning and almost did not make it. They had to create a new body for you, because your old one was too battered. Touya was worried that your spark was fading, even so."

Syaoran glared. "So what, he thought making me angry would make me better?"

"I can't pretend to understand everything that goes through his head," Yukito smiled, "but it sure is a relief to know that you have enough fight in you to kick him in the face. Now that I would have liked to see. It's not something you would have done before."

Syaoran's stomach sank. "I tried to kill him…" That was another thing he would not have done before. He had no intention of checking his blow. If Kurogane had not intervened…

"He had it coming," said ninja drawled, unconcerned.

The Dreamseer rubbed his fingers clean on a handkerchief. He did not seem particularly alarmed by the admission. In fact, no one seemed to be, now that Syaoran thought of it; all the soldiers at the training grounds had been watching, and none of them seemed worried that Syaoran might have succeeded.

Maybe he would not have. The prince was actually more skilled than Syaoran was, with the benefit of more experience and greater strength. He was also not blinded with rage, the way Syaoran was.

But the thought did not reassure him; Syaoran had never gone berserk before. Yet another thing that made him feel like a monster.

"You're going to be fine," Yukito said gently. "Your soul is pure, just like the princess. Such goodness never perishes to evil in the end." He leaned forward. "Don't run away, alright? You don't know how much your loss would hurt. We know you're hurting. We'll do what is necessary to get you better. Just give us a chance."

Kurogane's hand pressed on Syaoran's shoulder and pulled the boy back, away from Yukito. Syaoran looked at the Dreamseer with a frown. He did not feel very pure. He did not feel like the princess either. And he did not believe that the hurt would ever go away.

* * *

Fay and Kurogane took turns keeping an eye on Syaoran; that was the only adequate description he had. They were always by his side, or somewhere within reach, and every time he looked up at the sky and contemplated trying to jump—he still was not good enough to get the initial lift—they would put a hand on his shoulder and ground him.

He had not  _said_ anything about leaving; he was not entirely certain himself. Where would he go? What would he do? But the thought wavered back and forth between running away and never coming back, to just escaping temporarily, be back by nightfall. Still, Kurogane and Fay were not taking any chances. They had always been insightful people, Syaoran thought, but ever since he got a new body, they had become more aggressive about influencing his life and his actions.

 _They're treating me like a child,_ Syaoran thought. They use to treat him like an adult, and now, after what had happened, they were treating him like he did not know what was good for himself, and this quickly got annoying. Not that he knew what was good for himself, but he did not care, and they certainly never seemed to care before.

He managed to keep his temper in check by the skin of his teeth until evening, when he retired early and was able to escape into his room. He locked the door before Mokona could come in, and then went to the window to open it.

But it was sealed shut. He pressed his fingers against the glass and magic rippled. A spell.

A numb feeling permeated his limbs. He drew back, considering. He leaned forward to tug harder, but the spell held and the window remained locked.

His temper snapped. Fay had  _kindly_ donated his magic, which meant Syaoran had to spend all that time getting use to this alien force within him, along with everything else—might as well put it to use. Vehemently, he summoned a spell, and  _threw_ it with all his might at the window.  _Shatter, you bastard_ , he thought, but magic just rippled over the glass, and the window remained intact.

_You've got to be kidding me._

He threw another spell. And again. He threw a whole torrent at it, but it did nothing but absorb the magic and seem to become even  _stronger._ Behind him, the door opened. He spun around and threw a spell  _that_ way, furious.

There was a flash of gold. Queen Nadeshiko lowered her staff, which flickered a little as it absorbed the magic. Behind her, the king stood, along with the Dreamseer.

Fay slid in front of the queen.

Syaoran looked at the four of them for a moment.

"Am I prisoner here?" His voice was a lot quieter and steadier than he felt.

Fay stepped into the room. "What are you doing?" he asked instead of answering Syaoran's question.

"It's stuffy in here," Syaoran glared defiantly. He felt jittery, restless. "Why'd you lock the window?"

"You know why," said the queen.

Syaoran whirled away, breaths heaving, trying to control the surge of rage. He could fight them, he thought. He could fling the spells at  _them_ , and  _force_ his way out of here. If they were going to treat him like a prisoner, then he will gratify them—

"Sweetheart," the queen said softly from right behind him. He jerked away, but she caught him by the arms as he spun around to face her. "Please. No. You know we would never hurt you—"

"You don't  _have_ to!" Syaoran yelled at her, shaking her off. He did not think he could hurt more than he already was. "I don't care  _what_ you do!"

"Son," the king intoned, stepping to join his wife.

"Don't call me that, I'm not your  _son_ ," Syaoran spat, and tried to slide past the royal couple. King Fujitaka grabbed him before he could make it.

"You  _are_ my son," he stated, a thread of steel lacing in his voice, and he suddenly resembled his real son. "Even if you don't remember,  _I_ do. You may not understand this now, young as you are, but it is a father's job to protect his child, just as it is a mother's."

"Well  _too late!_ " Syaoran shrieked, and yanked himself away. "I'm not yours, I was never yours, it was all a lie! But it's all gone now—" he turned and ran face-first into Fay, who trapped him in an embrace.

"Stop. Now. Before you hurt someone."

Somehow, those words got through. Syaoran instantly stilled.

 _Spirits._ He had thrown a spell at the queen. If she had not caught it…

"Good boy," said Fay, for some reason, and he released Syaoran to cup his face. "We'll take you flying tomorrow, alright? It's late, and you're exhausted. You can go flying tomorrow."

Syaoran felt sick. He felt like a pipe that was bursting, and all at once his eyes were wet and streaming. He felt wild, out of control, and he was terrified of what he had become.

"I can't…" he whimpered, and if Fay had not been trapping his face Syaoran would have hidden it in his hands. He missed Yue with an unbearable desperation. Yue had kept Syaoran calm, had surrounded Syaoran with a soft, gentle shelter that quieted the nervous energy threatening to overwhelm him, but Yue was gone, Syaoran had left him, and no one here understood him as well as that guardian. No one ever would.

"Syaoran?"

"If I stay here I'm going to kill everyone," Syaoran shuddered. He was being perfectly serious.

"You're not in any shape to hurt anyone, let alone kill them."

"I can't control it!" Syaoran shouted, hitting Fay hard in the arm. The mage did not even blink, and it infuriated Syaoran further. Was he not comprehending them or were they not understanding him? "I can't hold back—I haven't held back—"

Fay's eyes sharpened. "You're upset, of course you can't control it."

"I can't ever control it. I need to leave."

"You can if you calm down. You did fine back in Tomoeda."

"You need to kill me or let me go," Syaoran whispered. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

"Syaoran," Fay said seriously, "I promise, you won't hurt anyone."

"I already did." The prince's lip was bleeding, and if Kurogane had not been right there—

"Syaoran, I promise, you won't hurt anyone. You can't go flying tonight, not like this. You'll get hurt."

"I don't care—"

"Well we do."

Syaoran had no idea what to say to this, so he just sobbed like a pathetic idiot, because these words did nothing to help with the awful feeling in him. Fay pulled him close and wrapped him in a tight embrace.

"You're going to be fine," the wizard promised. "We know this is hard for you. He had Yue with him in the other world," his voice shifted as he spoke to the others. "and that guardian…really devoted everything he could. Day and night, he was always with him. He could go flying with him whenever they wanted, since he could fly as well."

"Poor child," he heard the queen murmur.

"Yukito," said the king, "is there anything you can do?"

"I already enervated him yesterday," said the priest. "It's not something we want to do too often."

And then it was as if all his strength left him anyway, like snuffing out a candle. He felt as if his blood had pooled away from his head—or the rest of him, and the sensation was dizzying, without any warning. Syaoran swooned against Fay, who tightened his hold to support him.

"There we go. He's finishing." Fay maneuvered Syaoran so that Syaoran was leaning better. "There we are. It's over."

"Lay him down," said the queen.

He was laid down. Syaoran was limp. His face felt swollen, and he could not even open his eyes anymore, but inside, he felt empty, and that was a relief of sorts. Better than the bundle of anxiety. He could just not care about anything.

"Someone should stay with him," said the queen.

"I'll stay," said Fay.

"Are you certain?" asked the priest.

"He's my flesh and blood now." Syaoran felt Fay's hands encircle both of his own, warm and dry. "Besides, this is not the first time I've sat with him. We'll be fine."

 _He had,_ Syaoran recalled faintly. He had very poor memory of the time between the rape and being resurrected; brain-damage, Kinomoto Touya had explained, and much of that time was lost during the transfer, but he knew Fay had been there.

He remembered Fay crying.

The Dreamseer and the king and queen left. Fay made himself comfortable at Syaoran's bedside, tucking him in with a proficiency that reminded Syaoran faintly of Yue.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Fay sat down. "For what?"

Syaoran was still feeling the lethargic emptiness. "For being weak," he whispered, unwilling to elaborate.

Fay stroked his cheek. "You're the strongest person I know," said the mage. "You held on for as long as you could. There's no shame in needing help. You'll get better. I promise."

Syaoran did not believe him, but he was too tired to care.

* * *

They sent Mokona with him the next day.

Syaoran had the mind to tip the creature off him, something he would _never_ have considered before. Mokona grabbed on securely and chirped happily on his shoulder, unwitting, and he doubted he could flip him off. His wings were so big that they were really only good at long-distance gliding and going high up in the clouds. They were not especially nimble, and no good at tricks. The flight itself cleared his head, though, and while he was still angry that the adults were being so controlling, he no longer felt like he was going to combust. Maybe part of his irritability was more fear and anxiety than true anger.

It was easy to distance himself, with the very real distance between him and the ground. Though his wings were heavy and hard to flap, they were very efficient at propelling, and he could cover long distances without moving them much. The wind felt sharp against his face, and the sun was warm on his back. People were far away, save for Mokona, whose chatter Syaoran eventually tuned out as he began contemplating his future.

He had never really contemplated it, he realized. As a child, he had imagined being everything, from a healer to a warrior to a mage, but after meeting the princess, his plans never went beyond saving her. His parents never really talked to him about it either; perhaps it was because they understood that his life was trapped in a loop, and there was no point in discussing the matter until this was broken. After his parents were lost, all he thought about was getting them back. He had not considered the viability of a future with the princess, how unrealistic such an expectation would be. Nor did he think about what he would do with his life. Serve King Fujitaka? In what capacity? Should he continue to be an archaeologist, or should he use his other abilities?

And now he was this ruined husk, his very body an unnatural creation, his essence a tangle of hysteria. He no longer trusted in his own abilities to be a warrior, and he doubted anyone would take him seriously as a mage. As a healer, he had limited powers to begin with, and Fay's magic ensured that his talents would never lie there. Archaeology would be an attractive option if he could lock himself in one of the tombs and never come out again, never talk to anyone, never try to be even a shadow of his old self.

He should not have come back. There was nothing for him here. He had never been good enough for the princess, being the commoner that he was, and he hardly became more worthy after all of this. He had no role in this world to begin with, no ties or family, and while it might not have been a bad idea just to return to tell everyone he was finished, he did not have to stay. He could go. He could go right now, just keep flying; these wings could cross continents in a matter of hours, if he just—

"Syaoran," Mokona rubbed his temple, "What's wrong?"

He should probably get rid of Mokona first. Though he would be abandoning Mokona…that would not be kind.

_Idiot. Why do you think they sent Mokona with you?_

Upon doubling back, Syaoran quickly realized that he might have misunderstood the adults after all. Kinomoto Touya's words echoed back to him: _…they can't account for all the ways things go wrong; teenagers just don't have enough life experience to know how to avoid bad decisions…_ and one thing Syaoran did not count on going wrong was the fact that he might get lost. Without all the usual landmarks in the air, it was very easy for him to deviate, and if Mokona had not been with him, he might not have made it back to the palace.

If he had gone out at night, he would have even less of a chance.

Fay and Kurogane were waiting; they had not moved from their spot since he left, and that was a good hour or so ago. Syaoran landed in front of them and overestimated the stamina he had left. He was not able to brake properly, and tumbled into them. Mokona giggled, hopping off, while Kurogane and Fay both caught him.

"Sorry," Syaoran gasped, surprised by the fumble.

"Good flight?" Fay asked, smiling hopefully.

Syaoran panted for breath. _It would have gone longer if I did not have to come back._  He nodded, but was already distracted; where would he go? He had nowhere to go.

"Hope you're hungry, then," Fay squeezed his arm. "Can't exercise without fuel, and you're already in a deficit. Come on."

* * *

He remained deep in thought.

He considered that maybe he never had a future because he was not supposed to have one. Maybe the appropriate price was to take Sakura's place and have the Seal of Death placed on him instead. His heart was also pure, or so everyone said. It should have been a fair exchange.

He thought about taking off from one of the palace walls, even with everyone looking. His wings were too cumbersome for him to take off directly from the ground, but from a high point, as long as they catch  _some_ air, he could gain altitude from there. Not like anyone can stop him.

"You're getting ideas," Kurogane interrupted his thoughts at one point.

"Huh?"

The ninja narrowed his eyes. They were standing in a corridor, and Syaoran could not remember how they got there and when. Kurogane and Fay seemed to take turns watching him, while the other would talk to one of the royal family or with the Dreamseer. Syaoran had stopped acknowledging when they switched around, consumed as he was with his own musings. The stained-glass windows illuminated the hall, depicting the rich history of the kingdom in little, artful figures. Syaoran had been staring past them pensively until Kurogane spoke.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

Kurogane glared. "You haven't lied to me in a long time, Syaoran."

That was true, but he was also a different person now. Maybe he had turned into a liar.

"Fay and I can't be Yue. Yue is something else. But we're trying. Fay…he really doesn't have anyone else but us. He cried every night when you were at the hospital. When you died and Hiiragizawa was going to finish you, Fay practically offered his own soul in your place. If you can't talk to me, at least talk to him."

The words inspired a curdle of guilt. Syaoran looked away.

"I think your efforts have gone to waste."

"…What do you mean?"

Syaoran shrugged. He looked up at the glass windows.

Kurogane moved so they were in line, looking at the same window.

"We met the other Syaoran."

"…Did you?"

"Mm. He was older. Twenty-three, he said. Had a great deal of power, said it was donated to him by Clow's reincarnation."

Syaoran knew this; Yue had told him.

"Seemed very well-off, at least now, but he had his share of hardship. He knew what had happened to you. Not the details, but no one knows the details. Just the aftermath. We met him for the first time at the hospital. It was very surreal." He paused. "His mannerisms were the same. And…he knew you. He  _is_ you, after all. Everything you were feeling, he told us would happen. He said you would be afraid to face Sakura. He said you wouldn't want to be a burden. A lot of times when Yue felt lost, he would call that Syaoran to discuss how to help you. He offered a lot of insights, when you were in your old body. Yue did too." The ninja turned to him. "Fay and I…neither of us had normal childhoods. You are a good child, smart, strong and capable, and that was enough for us. Fooled us into thinking you were something you're not. We didn't even know there were other things we can do. That we should have done, should be doing. Yue told us all these things about the other you, how you developed under his care, and that version of you…it wasn't just that he turned into a fine young man. He had a beautiful relationship with that guardian. Both of their lives had started off just as painful as any of ours, and could very well have led to our story as well. All it had taken was for this magical guardian to let go of his own sadness and learn to love a child that wasn't his. He wandered for thousands of years, thinking his creator abandoned him, all alone in that world—'in a living nightmare', he said, but when Fay and I saw him…overall he was so profoundly happy. The other you had made him so happy. We watched him with you and there were all these things about you, about boys your age, that we simply didn't know. You were always wiser than your years, wiser than many full grown men, but there were some things…even your brother-in-law would lament about child development, what was reasonable to expect at every stage, and the consequences of…all the ways everyone had failed you, because the princess was more vulnerable, and we forgot you were too." His voice went low. "The fact that timing is more important than anything, and a child's innocence should be protected until they are old enough, not just when they seem like they're ready, and that is what parents are for. That sometimes we really should not treat you as an adult, if we really cared about you. Fay and I realized we had been doing it wrong. We didn't know better, because our own childhoods were failures…but…we were doing it wrong. Then…when you died, it was so sudden…" He paused for a long moment this time. "It was very sudden. We left you with Yue because the doctor wanted to talk to us. We were standing just outside the building when it happened. Even the doctor was shocked. Yue tried to revive you, but it was already over. Not like the times at the hospital when the doctor was able to save you; your soul just whisked off, no hesitation, straight to that other Syaoran. The two of you were going to merge. I'm still not sure what it means. I'm guessing your memories would be shared. But they didn't want that."

Of course not. Their Syaoran was actually pure, untainted, and happy. Why would they want Tsubasa's memories defiling that?

"He forced you from him, but he didn't let you go immediately. We watched him hold on to you and Fay was beside himself. I had never felt so helpless in my life." Kurogane's jaw clenched. "I thought, if he gave up on you then that might as well mean that you gave up on yourself and there really is no hope then. But his wife convinced him."

Kinomoto Sakura?

"She believed in you, in herself. And he did too. Decided to save you, even if it meant she would not see him for a while."

"He doesn't know me so well, then," Syaoran said quietly.

"I think he knows you better than you know yourself."

"…I'm a mess."

"…Every man has a breaking point. Yours was every man's. No one expects you to just bounce back. Especially not in this instance. You were always better at fighting to defend others, but you were always terrible at fighting on your own behalf."

Syaoran hunched down. If that was supposed to make him feel better, it was not working. He heard what Kurogane had not quite said; that longing in his voice, though he controlled it, could not be mistaken: he and Fay wanted what Yue and the other Syaoran had. Tomoeda always seemed like a dream, what could have been but was impossible now. It was nice to hear about the beautiful relationship between another version of himself and a magical guardian, but Tsubasa Li had no such relationship. He was irreparably damaged and had no power to make anyone happy.

""I don't think I can do either, anymore."

"No one expects you to."

"Well then what  _do_ they expect?" Syaoran's tones became short. "They expect nothing, is that it? No future, no purpose. What am I even doing here? Why did you bring me back?"

"Because we didn't want to lose you."

"Ugh," Syaoran turned away, seizing at his hair with both hands.

"What's so hard to believe about that?" Kurogane demanded.

Syaoran took a deep breath. Exhaled.

"And a good thing we brought you back," Kurogane went on, "because it's not just the princess who was waiting for you. The king had all these stories to tell about you as a little boy—in both versions, and the second one counts, because your soul was in that clone at the time. Even the prince admitted to me that he always envisioned you as a member of his court once he inherited the throne. They don't expect anything from you other than for you to be here. They just want you here. They need you here. That's all."

Syaoran lowered his hands, but Kurogane's bigger ones framed his head from behind. It did not inspire the same kind of startled reflex as when the king did it. Syaoran found that touches from Kurogane and Fay were just less frightening overall. He was not sure if it was because of how they did it or because of the new bond he shared with them, through his new body.

"I held your cold, broken body in my arms," the warrior said softly, his voice going deep and quiet, a shadow underlying his tones. "If you did not accept your new body, that would have been the only one you knew. I held your battered body, the one that couldn't even hold your spirit anymore. Fay cradled you until your limbs started to get stiff and that doctor told us we had to let you go. You can't ever know what that feels like. I've seen demons and I've killed demons. I've killed men and I've seen men be killed. I carried my mother's bloodied body and watched a demon devour my father's severed arm. That is my past. But you are the future, and neither Fay nor I will ever regret bringing you back to fulfill it. And I know you won't give up on yourself, because you still have it in you—the prince found it," and then his tones became vicious, "and if you ever do I will hunt your soul down myself."

 _I would hurt them,_ Syaoran realized. If he left, he would really hurt them. Especially Kurogane and Fay, who had looked upon Yue and the other version of himself and somehow got the strange idea that this relationship could be repeated among the three of them.

He could not leave. They would be so hurt.

"But I'm not really back," he whispered.

"Yes you are." Kurogane let go. "Everyone sees you."

"What does that mean?" People had been saying that.

The ninja snorted. "Same way Yue knew you," he replied. "Same way we knew the other Syaoran, despite the age difference. Same way the King and Queen knew you. You're fine."

Syaoran was not particularly convinced, but he knew that fleeing was not an option anymore.

If he never gets better…everyone would just have to live with it. Including himself.

* * *

It was hard to believe that the prince really had any kind intentions when he proceeded to avoid Syaoran as much as he could, as he use to. It was fine by Syaoran, who stuck close to Fay and Kurogane from then on, other than his flying sessions with Mokona. It helped to make him feel more in control of himself, and he had no more breakdowns since that night. The princess also made herself scarce, and the King and Queen would occasionally check on Syaoran throughout the days, but mostly left him alone. They even did not join the three foreigners during meals, which made the food a little easier to stomach.

Syaoran knew this would not last, though.

"Have they said anything about us staying?" he asked Fay during breakfast.

"Hm?"

"The King and Queen."

"Us staying?"

"Here." Syaoran looked around. "We're staying at the royal palace, eating their food and keeping the servants from their other duties. I'm not even working." Not that he knew what he wanted to do, or what he even could do. Venturing out as an archaeologist, the safest choice, seemed daunting just because he felt so off and unwilling to interact with other people.

"Well, I'm helping High Priest Yukito with a project," said Fay, "and Kurogane is showing off his muscles at the training grounds every so often. They said they'd like to hire him to train them."

"I don't know," Kurogane inserted while chewing on a mouthful, "they're sissies."

"That's why they need you to train them!"

"How are you two already doing things?" Syaoran exclaimed.

"We're not actually doing that much," Fay reassured him. "But what are you worried about? They're not going to kick us out. They've been doing the exact opposite, actually."

Syaoran had no idea what to say to that. "What are their plans, then?" he finally asked.

Kurogane took another bite. "I'm sure they'll let us know if it's anything important."

Syaoran hesitated, then slid his chair back.

"Syaoran—" Fai called out.

"Oh let him go," Kurogane grumbled. "Kid can't let it rest. Part of his charm."

Syaoran had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but he set the thought aside to look for one of the members of the royal family. Even the princess would do. Or the High Priest.

He found the prince in the main hall. The young man was chatting with a group of other young men, all noble-looking, clad in fine satins and velvets. Not willing to draw attention from so many strangers, Syaoran was about to turn back, but then one of them raised his head, and Syaoran's blood turned cold with shock.

He knew that face. It had spat on him, and then grinned as Syaoran was punched in the jaw. It had laughed as hands fired a spell right into him when Syaoran tried to fight. It had leered at him as a penis pistoned in.

He could feel the panic surge up, unstoppable, like bubbles through his fingers. A cry escaped his throat. He saw the prince turn, and had the presence of mind to whirl around. He had to flee. Had to find a place of solitude, somewhere where no one would find him, before the terror took over him and he was reduced to complete madness.

But his limbs felt weak, and the air felt thick, like moving through molasses. His head felt light and detached from the rest of his body. Sounds were squeaking from his throat, high-pitched like an animal, and despite all his efforts he could not silence himself.

He stumbled. Tried to run, but his joints were stiff and his balance was off. His vision blurred. He told himself that he was not there anymore. He was not even in the same world. This nobleman was just a doppelgänger, a version in this world that had never done anything to Syaoran, had never even seen him before. Within the halls of the palace, as the royal family's guests, no one could touch Syaoran. No one would dare. But all the logic did nothing to stem the tide.

His body shook. He toppled. Fell on his hands and knees. He tried to get up. Could not. Tried to crawl. Not fast enough. His wings burst from his back and he tried to flap them to generate momentum, but he was too low to the ground and they beat upon the floor without catching any air.

Arms wrapped around his body. He screamed. Sobbed. Beat his wings, but they were awkward and heavy and he had no leverage. He raised them up, but whoever it was used this opportunity to spin under it and confine him from the front. He pushed against the broad shoulders. Cried out again. Begged. The arms pulled him close, and a hand slammed against the back of his head to press his face into the chest. He beat his wings again. Tried to move his legs. His captor tipped both of them over so that Syaoran was almost on his back, body lifted off the floor only by those arms, and face pressed tight into the robes.

He thrashed. He felt dizzy and strange. He tried to cast magic but it puffed out, formless, failing him like his body did. He beat his wings one more time and then sagged in defeat. Sobbed, and kept sobbing. He could not stop crying.

It was ages before the episode passed. He was drenched in sweat. He trembled, his teeth chattering. His heart hammered until his head felt like it was going to explode. Squeezed against that chest, he was not able to hyperventilate as much as he could have, but his lungs were exhausted and he felt like he was close to passing out. But the fear receded slowly, as those arms did nothing but hold him, and he heard…people talking. Gradually, the voices penetrated; first the owners, then the words.

"…and I don't want him to see any of your faces when he's back," Prince Touya murmured from right above his head, his chest vibrating with each vowel.

"Your Highness—"

"Go. Tell them to avoid this corridor. I don't want some idiot barging in and setting him off again."

Syaoran began to pull his body away, but the hand pressing his head was firm and unyielding. He heard footsteps retreating. Voices, distant and soft, indistinct. Then silence.

"Alright," Prince Touya said softly, "they're gone. Feeling better?"

He allowed Syaoran to draw back—or rather, down. Syaoran's face was wet with tears and snot. So was the prince's robe.

_Great._

Prince Touya did not let him go, though he did tilt the boy's upper body up and swing himself around so he was cradling him. One hand produced a handkerchief, which he used to wipe at Syaoran's face, including the nose. Syaoran tried to say something, anything, but all that came out were miserable hiccups.

He sagged. He was so drained that he could not even lift his head. The prince did not push him away, just adjusted his hold so that he was cradled better. It was still an awkward hold, because one of Syaoran's wings was bent completely to his other side, and the muscles were starting to strain. But he had no energy to try to shift out. The panic attack left him feeling like he had sprinted a marathon.

Prince Touya reached around and hugged him tight. He was as tall as the doctor, and with his sweeping robes, he managed to create that feeling of shelter even more than Kinomoto Touya could with his scrubs.

"It's alright," he said.

_No. It's not._

"I thought I was getting better," he whispered after a while. He felt like he was immersed in utter desolation.

The prince hummed. It was soothing. He was being far more tender than Syaoran had ever seen, save when he interacted with his mother and sister. "This isn't something you can rush."

It really was not. Syaoran had tried. Tried, and tried, but he could not find himself. Be the person he was. Because the person he had been, while better than the useless wreck he was now, had not been enough.

"Why do you hate me?" he sobbed, suddenly overcome with despair. "What did I do? Was it what made them want to hurt me? I don't understand!"

The prince jerked back, and Syaoran flinched—the move was sudden, and he realized he should not have asked. He was getting too comfortable, mixing up this Touya with the surgeon, the one who always looked at Syaoran with soft eyes instead of the glares he was use to. But the prince's arms tightened as his face contorted in anguish. He pressed his forehead down to Syaoran's.

"I'm sorry." His breath hitched, and he paused, before hugging Syaoran closer, rocking him slightly. "I'm so sorry. I never hated you. I didn't like you, because you were so serious and worried, and seeing you cut into the bliss that was life before you came. I did not realize that you were anxious because you knew something bad was about to happen. Afterwards, I was jealous, because I had been the one she looked up to, the one she idolized above all else, and once you came, you were all she needed. I felt cut out. She no longer needed me and all of the sudden I had no place in her life. In either of your lives. You did not need me either; you were so independent, and better than I was at every stage of your life. But it was all me; it had nothing to do with you. You did nothing wrong; you are a good boy, one of the best. It was my weakness. I was inadequate. And that goes more so for those monsters who dared to hurt you like this. You did not deserve this; you  _do_ not deserve this, and I  _hate_ that it happened to you," he crushed Syaoran to him as his voice became more tearful. "I promise. I'll do better. Don't be afraid of me. I am your brother." He pressed his face over Syaoran's head and wept. "You were my brother and I did not even know. Never chose to look. I failed you, Syaoran. I'm so sorry. I understand if you hate me, but I promise I'll do better." He rocked. "I'll do better."

Kinomoto Touya must have told Kurogane to talk to the prince, Syaoran realized. And whatever Kurogane had said got through. He did not realize that the royal family viewed him as one of their own, that seeing him hurt would cause them to feel grief instead of scorn. He had been so worried that they would see him as a piece of garbage, as spoiled goods, something to be discarded. He thought the prince would feel gratified by his pain, by this evidence that he was a failure. Out of all of them, Syaoran had been the most worried about Prince Touya, because he was the main individual who seemed to loathe Syaoran from the start, and he would be the one to turn everyone else to his way of thinking. It had always bothered him, how the older youth disliked him no matter what he did, and Syaoran himself was a proud being, unwilling to apologize when he did not believe he had done anything wrong. He never thought the two of them would ever get along. But seeing Syaoran like this actually  _hurt_ the prince, and the King and Queen—they cared enough about him to  _be_ pained…that was unexpected.

All at once, the prince looked like someone who might be able to save Syaoran…just as his other self once did.

"I don't feel like myself," he whispered, looking up at the man with hope in his throat.  _Please, fix me._ "They drained me away and filled me with themselves. I still feel them inside me. I've been trying to get back, to be stronger, but it's like they shackled me down, and all I can be is…skewered…rot."

The prince raised his head. His face was wet, but his expression was composed as he raised a hand to stroke Syaoran's cheek. "I know you, and I still see you, feisty thing," he whispered back with a small smile. "It's going to be alright. You're lying low for now. They nearly killed you, but you survived, and you'll return even stronger than you were. You already are. It's not in your nature to flee. You are a fighter to the last. But it's alright to hide for a while. We'll handle things while you rest. I'll protect you until you're ready." He touched his forehead to Syaoran's again. "That's what big brothers are for."

Somehow, hearing this from Prince Touya was different from hearing it from Kurogane, or Fay, or Yue. Because Prince Touya did not like Syaoran, and had no reason to say things just to make him feel better. Had no reason to care. His reassurance became more than a platitude and instead became fact. Something real.

The lump of hope moved down his throat and settled in his heart, where it bloomed.

* * *

He saw, in the King and Queen, something that he dared to recognize as love, for the first time since coming here.

He realized the King had wept because to him, regardless of the reality, it was his own son who had been violated, brutally tortured, and brought home in pieces. His own son, who had died three times and might have stayed dead and never come back. As time went on, he dared to reach out to the king, and there was no adequate way to describe the man's expression. Sometimes he even reminded Syaoran of Yue, in the way he seemed to just know things about Syaoran, how he was feeling or what he was thinking. He sometimes surprised Syaoran by remarking on some habit or preference Syaoran had ever since he was little, that he thought no one would remember now because his parents were gone. It got confusing sometimes, because Fujitaka seemed to have picked this up from both timelines, and Syaoran wondered if Kurogane was right after all: that his clone self had counted because everything still applied.

He learned that the Queen had not joined them that first morning because she was crying in her room, for all the composure she displayed when Syaoran did see her. Whenever Syaoran went to her, she would reach out with her eyes, eager to catch him should he choose to fall into her, while knowing that it was not in Syaoran's nature to rely on others. She treated Syaoran's every gesture of faith like a gift, doubling her efforts to prove to him that she was worthy of his trust. Which was not hard, because she was what Sakura would become when she was older, and was thus not so different from the mother Syaoran remembered.

Fay and Kurogane stood at his side, two tall pillars standing guard. They sheltered him when he needed a place to hide, sometimes tugging him under their wing by force. They were willing to make him upset in order to ensure his well-being, and though it irked him at times, that was ultimately the greatest kindness Syaoran had ever known. Syaoran never realized how lonely he had felt before, until he learned what being cared for felt like. He was not sure when he somehow became responsible for the hope in their eyes, but as the days passed, he could see the optimism on Fay's face, that contemplation on Kurogane's. While Syaoran had been wild with grief in Tomoeda, the two of them somehow came up with a new dream for the future, one that had Syaoran solidly fixed in both of their lives.

Prince Touya did not spar with him again, but he often sought Syaoran's companionship, usually in the form of some summons for an errand that usually consisted of the two of them silently occupying the same space while Syaoran contributed nothing except his presence. It was initially very awkward, but as time went on this became more of a comfort: they were both introspective individuals, and did not necessarily need conversation to bond. The prince was curious about Kinomoto Touya, whom Syaoran actually saw rather little of; the doctor was always at work, and did not always come to check on Syaoran afterwards. But what little he could relate seemed to amuse the prince, particularly his sarcastic, oath-laden sense of humor, and at one point Prince Touya remarked that he was convinced they shared the same soul, because Kinomoto Touya often said the sort of things Prince Touya thought while dealing with bureaucrats. Occasionally, the prince still called him a brat, but it was like when Kinomoto Touya called his brother-in-law his own slew of insults. The words were not meant to hurt; they were there to ignite his spirit. As his defiance sparked, the crippling sorrow lifted, and he had the strength to look upon the world, upon himself, and see something besides despair. One day, he thought, he might have the same teasing relationship Kinomoto Touya and his other self had, where insults and jabs camouflaged a deep brotherly bond that could prevail through dimensions.

They all looked upon him with love and, as time went on, he also noted that they looked upon him with confidence.  _"He was ours before you ever came along,"_ Prince Touya had said to Fay, and he realized that they all felt he belonged with them. They all  _decided_ that he did. And they all believed that he would recover, even stronger than he was, but until then, they were willing to do whatever he needed while he healed.

And slowly…he did.

* * *

He was looking over the balcony, the same one Prince Touya shoved him to on the day he had returned. It was evening, and the sun had already set. Below, the servants were lighting lanterns to illuminate the garden. The glow rippled on the pond, which also reflected the moon above.

"Tsubasa," he heard her say.

He turned around. The princess stood in a white gown, jewels in her hair that glittered in the moonlight. She was noticeably younger than her Tomoeda counterpart, but she would grow more beautiful as her features became more defined. It did not matter, anyhow; the princess was always beautiful because she made the world around her so, not so much because of her own looks.

 _Your Highness,_ he wanted to say, but for some reason that did not sound quite right.  _Sakura_ , he wanted to say, but she had called him by his true name.

"Tsubasa," he said instead.

She had stayed away, mostly. She stopped trying to accost Syaoran after that first night. But she had been around, in the periphery, just out of range and yet within his awareness. Fay assured Syaoran that she did not know the details, just that something had happened and she needed to give Syaoran some room and space. Syaoran did not think he ever wanted her to know, but she might find out anyway. One day she will take the place of the Queen, and the High Priest. She will have the same powers Queen Nadeshiko and High Priest Yukito have.

He shied away from the thought, knowing it would make him feel ill.

"You're looking better," the girl said, stepping close.

Syaoran looked down. He had gained some weight, at last. Finally able to stomach food down.

He looked back up at her. "You're looking good too," he started, and then realized how awkward that sounded. "You always look good."

That did not help.

She smiled at this, though. "Lots of people say that sort of thing," she stated as she came to his side, "but I know you really mean it."

Syaoran huffed. "Lots of people mean it too."

"Maybe." She braced her arms against the railing. "What are you doing here?"

"Just thinking."

"Oh." She paused. "Thought you were going to jump off. With your wings. I guess you really are Tsubasa now."

… _Hm._

"I guess."

"Can I see them?" she asked shyly. "I understand if…if you don't want to…but they looked so beautiful, and I never got a good look."

Syaoran stared, realizing that she was right. The wings, puzzling as they were, had been the one thing that proved there was still something good in him. Supposedly.

He unfolded them. They were still a little cumbersome, but as the princess pointed out, he was getting better, stronger, and it took less effort to maneuver them than it use to.

Princess Tsubasa gasped. She looked upon them in wonder. Her eyes scanned over the feathers, patterned in amber and green.

"Yukito said that you got them because your soul is very pure," she said.

_Supposedly._

"They are gorgeous." She reached out, then checked herself. "May I?"

It was odd, feeling her fingers on a part of him that did not exist before. It made his wings feel sensitive, and her light, gentle touch felt exquisitely vivid.

 _"You are beautiful, like me,"_ Yue had said, and Yue was beautiful indeed.

"You are beautiful," said the princess, and looked at him. She did not mean just the wings.

Syaoran felt his face grow hot. He thought of Kinomoto Sakura and the ring on her finger, her easy laugh and joy in her eyes. Yue, hands on Syaoran's waist as they looked at his new body in the mirror.  _"Just as handsome as my son when he was your age,"_ the guardian had declared. Kinomoto Sakura had married that Syaoran. 

That…can happen, here. Sakura and Syaoran of Clow Country. Tsubasa and Tsubasa.

It was the first time the thought seemed viable at all.

"At some point," the princess remarked, "can…do you mind…if we go flying?"

Joy. Freedom. Liberation. The troubles of the world falling down below. How could he not share this with the person he loved above all else? He would do it now, but it had been some time since he flew, and he did not feel strong enough to carry her just yet. But at some point.

"Yes," he stammered back, trying to contain his eagerness so that he did not look weird. "I—I would like that."

She smiled, laughed a little, then looked down. "Alright then." She started to draw back. "I'll…I'll see you around."

There was something despondent about her posture, and Syaoran suddenly realized that this was their first conversation since his return. Their first conversation, consisting of the princess cautiously stepping around him, trying to reach him but unsure how.

She deserved better than that.

"I love you," he called out, before she could turn around. She froze. He felt stupid, but the words were true, and he did not know what else to say. It occurred to him that he might have erred; saying that would mean she would have a harder time rejecting him, in case she deserved someone better, but the words were out and he could not take them back.

She looked back at him, and her face became serious. "I love you too," she stated.

There was a beat of silence as they regarded each other, and then Sakura approached, raising her arms to wrap tightly around his neck. Syaoran lifted his own to wrap around her. She clung to him.

"I missed you so much," she whispered.

"I missed you too," he admitted. How could he not?

"Don't ever leave again."

 _Don't leave again._ He had left on a quest. He had failed on that quest. He had tried to make their wishes come true. His failure meant not only that his own wish could not be fulfilled, but her wish could not either.

"I couldn't bring them back," he bowed his head against hers. "I can't bring them back."

"I don't care," she replied, and her hug became more firm. Assertive. "Sometimes, in life, you have to choose. I choose you. My family is yours, and your family is mine. That is how it should have been, and that is how it will be from now on."

Syaoran closed his eyes.

"I don't care about anything else," she went on. "Whatever happened to you, however you think you changed. I know you. Tsubasa. I see you. My one wish is for you to come home to me, and we may spend our remaining days together." And, perhaps because she was always more insightful than she appeared, she pressed her forehead to his cheek and stated, "You are always good enough. Always."

For the first time, Syaoran started to believe it. Everyone else seemed to think so. Everyone else apparently always believed it. And the princess clearly believed it too. She had chosen him. Perhaps he should have faith in her judgment. Perhaps he should start believing in himself.

Because the past was the past, and memories were memories, but the sun will rise in the morning, and he was not alone. It was alright for him to stop fighting, for a little while. He had people to shelter and guide him, who were confident that he will prevail. The princess was in his arms, and she showed no signs of leaving.

There will be more journeys, but this one, long and arduous and filled with heartbreak, had finally come to an end. He could rest now.

He is home.


End file.
